The Evening Drink in the Canterbury Meadows
Thomas Sidney Cooper was one of the foremost animal painters of the Victorian period. At the age of 20, he went to London, drew for a while in the British Museum, and was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy. Subsequently, he returned to Canterbury, where he was able to earn a living as a drawing master and by the sale of sketches and drawings. He later moved to Brussels where he was befriended by the renowned animal painter Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven (1798-1881) and gained a proficiency in this field that was to become a defining focus for the remainder of his career. He was also influenced by the 17th century Dutch School. Cooper specialised in paintings of cattle or sheep in landscapes, which earned him the nickname of ‘Cow Cooper’.
With the start of the Belgian Revolution, Cooper returned to London with his wife. In 1833 he first exhibited at the Royal Academy and continued to do so yearly until his death in 1902. In 1849, a wealthy man, he returned to his native Canterbury from where he would also paint and exhibit. Most notably in 1882 he developed his private art lessons into a full-fledged art school in Canterbury, located at his home and studio. Artist Mary Tourtel, later founder of the Rupert Bear series, studied here under Cooper in the 1890s. It now forms part of Christ Church University and, following several changes of name, has since renovation in 2004 been known as the Sidney Cooper Gallery.
This large-scale work by Cooper was exhibited at the 1851 Royal Academy exhibition and was donated to the museum in 1946.
