A landscape and figures

A landscape and figures was exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain in London in 1790. It is the last painting John Greenwood exhibited with the society and is a 'conversation piece'. These works depicted family groups in domestic or landscape settings with their furniture and paintings, or land and buildings. Two of the most notable artists in this genre were Arthur Devis Sr, who painted approximately 300 of them, and William Hogarth.

In this case, the large house on the right wa used by John Greenwood and his family as a rural summer residence; its location is Tottenham, now a London suburb famous for its football club. The artist himself is on horseback in the centre of the picture; his wife and children are beside the elm trees in the left background. The clump of trees was known as the Seven Sisters by 1732; with urbanisation these had been replanted nearby by 1876; currently they are hornbeams (planted 1997).

John Greenwood made his living as a portrait painter before leaving colonial Boston in 1752. He first travelled to Surinam on the north-east coast of South America, and then worked in Amsterdam for five years before settling in London in the 1760s. A sketchbook from his years in Surinam and Amsterdam, also in Te Papa's collection (2002-0020-1) features figure studies in which careful attention is paid to character and costume. Similar details abound in this painting. Each group of figures is finely depicted and there is a variety of activities to engage the viewer's attention. The slightly naive, informal quality of the sene is characteristic of the conversation piece at this time.

A landscape and figures was included among the possessions of Dr John Danforth Greenwood (grandson of the artist) and his family when they emigrated to New Zealand in 1843. It was given to the National Art Gallery by the Greenwood family, who knew the work by the title The seven sisters of Tottenham, together with John Singleton Copley's remarkable portrait Mrs Humphrey Devereux (1965-0013-1).

See:  Tony Mackle, 'John Greenwood', in William McAloon, Art at Te Papa (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2009), p. 44.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    November 2018