Falstaff's Own, by Henry Stacy Marks R.A., R.W.S., H.R.C.A. (1829-1898). 1867. Oil on canvas. 38 x 63 ¾ inches (96.5 x 162 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Bonham's. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1867, no. 430, accompanied by these lines from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Act 4, Scene 2. "I did never see such pitiful rascals." Marks's title refers to the army that Falstaff raised to assist Prince Hal, who later became Henry V, in his clash against the forces of Owen Glendower who had rebelled against Henry IV. Falstaff's response to Prince Hal's assessment of Falstaff's "pitiful rascals" is to reply: "Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men." The painting shows Falstaff mounted on a magnificent white steed leading his motley crew of peasant followers armed with spears and other pole weapons. Two women and a child watch their departure from their village on the right midground of the composition.
When the painting was shown at the Royal Academy the critic of The Art Journal felt the work was a mistake on Mark's part: "Mr. H. S. Marks, well nigh lost himself while painting those 'pitiful rascals,' 'Falstaff's Own' (430). They look like a rabble of Fenians. The picture compares unfavourably with Dogberry's Charge to the Watch exhibited some years ago. We here recognize not a few old favourite figures, the artist's studio properties. But the materials have not been duly submitted to Art-treatment. Throughout there is too much of a muchness. The work certainly is a mistake. We would gladly see converted into pictures some of the admirable studies Mr. Marks has exhibited in the Dudley Gallery" (142). The Illustrated London News congratulated Marks on the vigour displayed: "Mr. Mark's [sic] picture of 'Falstaff's Own' (430) – i.e., his ragged regiment – is the most vigourously painted work we have seen from his hand, and the power of representing a wide diversity of comic and strongly-marked character is peculiar to the artist; yeah, we cannot can see that a composition entirely consisting of unmitigated rascaldom is a desirable subject for representation" (519).
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum found this work to be a change form Marks's usual style:
Mr. H. S. Marks is one of the painters of the year who have in no small degree changed their styles. His Falstaff's Own (430) – the famous ragged regiment on their march – is warmer in colouring and bolder in handling them before from this artist; the figures are also larger than usual with him. His idea of the soldiers who took the King's money is not that they were so very ragged a lot as other authorities pretend; in fact, this is not a caricature, but a capital representation of the old, owlish, stupid, weak and insolent scamps who trooped over the hill, their nearly empty baggage-wagons following, by the side of the mounted knight, who made such a good thing of them. There is much rough execution here: see the faces of the female bystanders on the left; throughout the flesh-colouring cannot be received as natural. [629]
The reviewer for The Spectator felt Marks had captured well the nature of Falstaff's rabble: "Falstaff's Own (430), by Mr. H. S. Marks, is no less a success in exhibiting the utterly unsoldierlike condition, and want of military spirit of the 'pitiful rascals' whom the knight had enlisted, so much to the benefit of his own pocket, and so little to that of the cause they were to support" (668).
However, it was John Forbes-Robertson in Art, Pictorial and Industrial who produced the largest write-up of this painting, praising its delineation of character in the figures as well as its colouration:
"Mr. Marks in this picture has not sought to represent any particular scene from Henry IV; he has rather aimed at showing what manner of men they were with whom Sir John so flatly refused to march through Coventry, and of whom he said, "If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a souced gurnet."" The day is far spent and rain-clouds are gathering above the hill which the ragged and hungry regiment of Sir John, led by the villainous Pistol bearing the ensign, has just surmounted. The baggage waggon and the rear-guard toil painfully after the main body, about which we can plainly see, as it comes marching towards us, that Falstaff was perfectly justified in saying the hard things he did. He casts, as he rides, a devotional eye towards the women who hear more than they bargained for when they came out to see him and his crew go past. The units forming this motley crew are so well individualized that one would have no difficulty in composing a detailed history of the life of each. Let the reader enjoy this pleasure for himself. The little drummer-boy, who marches in front of the burly Bardolph, whose supper for the night dangles from his girdle, is the same who afterwards figures in the wars of Henry V, as servant to Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol. In his rose-red cap and suit of buff, the patient little fellow lends a redeeming interest to the worthies with whom he walks, and the eye, in scanning the various faces which fill the canvas, always returns to this one with renewed pleasure. The costume is that of Henry IV, and the name of the artist is what people would call a guarantee for its accuracy. In the matter of colour we may mention that the standard and its bearer are of a rich dark red, the boy to the right and Falstaff to the left in pale yellow, while the intervening figures work in with this tint, and show what harmonies may be produced by the skilful manipulation of pale blue and green, browns, greys, and reds. The picture, like all that Mr. Marks does, is the result of much conscientious study, and care.[218]
A heliograph of the painting was reproduced in the periodical (216-17).
Bibliography
19th Century Paintings. London: Bonhams (28 October 2009): lot 123. https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/16863/lot/123/
"Art. The Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News L (15 June 1867): 667-68.
"Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News L (25 May 1867): 519.
Forbes-Robertson, John. "'Falstaff's Own,' by Henry Stacy Marks A.R.A." Art, Pictorial and Industrial: An Illustrated Magazine I (April 1871): 217-18.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series VI (June 1, 1867): 137-46.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2063 (May 11, 1867): 628-29.
Created 24 October 2023