Bideston Farmhouse

William Huggins of Liverpool, 1820-1884

Signed W Huggins

Oil on board laid on canvas

22 x 16 inches, 56 x 41 centimetres

Bideston Farmhouse was painted at the turning point in Huggins' career for not only was 1850 the year in which he was elected a full member of the Liverpool Academy, but that same year the London Pre-Raphaelites first exhibited in Liverpool. It was the influence of Sir John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown that encouraged William Huggins to paint in transparent glazes over a white ground. Bideston Farmhouse, an intimate study of a farmyard flooded with sunlight, is an early example of his use of glazes, leaning toward Pre-Raphaelites techniques whilst imbued with a traditional quality of observation reminiscent of John Sell Cotman. — Sally Burgess