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May Day (painting)

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May Day
ArtistWilliam Collins
Year1812
TypeOil on canvas, genre painting
Dimensions94 cm × 111.8 cm (37 in × 44.01 in)
LocationYale Center for British Art, New Haven

May Day is an 1812 genre painting by the British artist William Collins.[1] It depicts a group of revellers celebrating the traditional May Day festival outside an English village inn, possibly on the outskirts of London. Young chimney sweeps in costume are shown begging for coins while a May Queen dances to the beat of a drum.[2] It was entered into the British Institution's annual exhibition.[3] Collins was paid 150 guineas for the painting.[4] Today it is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art in Connecticut.[5]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Cameron p.52
  2. ^ Solkin p.168-69
  3. ^ Solkin p.168
  4. ^ Peters p.14
  5. ^ https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:6153

Bibliography

[edit]
  • Cameron, David Kerr. The English Fair. Sutton Publishing, 1998.
  • Peters, Catherine. The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. Princeton University Press, 2014.
  • Solkin, David H. Painting Out of the Ordinary: Modernity and the Art of Everyday Life in Early Nineteenth-century Britain. Yale University Press, 2009.