£4,000
Thomas Cooper Moore (1827-1901) - Nottingham Goose Fair, October 1870, signed and dated (T C MOORE 1870), oil on canvas, 51.5 x 75.5cm
A comparable picture by the artist of Nottingham Goose Fair 1876 (51 x 61cm) was sold by the Estate of Sir John and Lady Smith, Sotheby's, 9 July 2019, lot 49. Moore's sketch of Nottingham Goose Fair, Beastmarket Hill 1867 is in the collection of Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery and is illustrated Iliffe (R) and R Baguley, Victorian Nottingham, vol 4, 1971, p12
This tour de force of mid Victorian folk art and genre painting by the local artist Thomas Cooper Moore is a valuable record of Nottingham Goose Fair. The annual Fair, the first of which is believed to predate the granting of a charter by Edward I in 1284, was for many centuries held in the town's magnificent Market Square. The rumbustious crowd, bent on enjoying themselves to the full, is observed by a bemused monkey that has wisely chosen an awning as its vantage point of the melee.
William Wordsworth's recollection of the feelings evoked by the signs and sounds of that particularly English notion of the fair in Regency England, in his observation of Bartholomew Fair in 1815 (The Prelude, Book Seven) - with their multitudes gawking at such as the learned pig, Red Indians, waxworks and freaks - would have been little different at Goose Fair in 1870
By the late 18th century, such was Nottingham's reputation for rebellion that the government built a cavalry barracks in 1792 and permanently stationed soldiers in the town. Nottingham was the birthplace of Luddism and the large Market Square with the Exchange, other important buildings and the homes of rich tradesmen in close proximity, was the meeting place of choice for rowdy protest. It was from the 15th century Bell Inn (to the right of the scene), during Goose Fair in 1831, that a mob incensed by the defeat of the Reform Bill rioted, leaving Nottingham Castle a smouldering ruin.
Restored for the late owner by the artist Dorothie Field (1915-1904) c1975-80 and in the same good, ready to hang 'gallery' condition. Lined with some localised retouching.
UV images available on request
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