What was this boy's mother famous for? The great British art quiz

Charles Beale the Younger, 1663-64. Photograph: Richard Caspole/Yale Center for British Art

This quiz is brought to you in collaboration with Art UK, the online home for the UK’s public art collections, showing art from over 3,000 venues and by 45,000 artists. Each day, a different collection on Art UK will set the questions. 

Today, our questions are set the Yale Center for British Art. The Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut, holds the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the UK, presenting the development of British art and culture from the Elizabethan period to the present day. The centre’s British art and books were the gift of Paul Mellon (1907–99), a graduate of Yale College (class of 1929). 

You can see art from the collection on Art UK here. Find out more on the Yale Center for British Art website here.

1. 

   Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy, was lauded as one of the greatest painters of British art in the 18th century. Yet, he was later derided by the Pre-Raphaelites who gave him what nickname?

   1. Captain Bitumen

   2. Sir Sloshua

   3. The Marquess of Plympton

   4. The West-Country Bumpkin

2. 

   The celebrated Victorian artist Richard Dadd, responsible for this painting, Fish Market by the Sea, is notorious for the murder of his what?

   1. Cat

   2. Father

   3. Sister

   4. Lover

3. 

   The Jacobean artist William Larkin’s identity was long lost and only rediscovered in the 1950s. Until then he was known by which moniker?

   1. Master of the Velvet Tablecloth

   2. Master of the Tiny Details

   3. The Curtain Master

   4. Master of the Spangled Nightcap

4. 

   John Constable began his major compositions with small oil sketches such as this one for the famous painting, The Hay Wain, now at the National Gallery, London. His large format paintings are commonly known as what?

   1. Eight-footers

   2. Whoppers

   3. Tiddlers

   4. Six-footers

5. 

   For which group of British artists was Fanny Eaton, the sitter in this portrait by Joanna Boyce Wells, a regular muse and model?

   1. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

   2. The School of London

   3. The Society of Artists of Great Britain

   4. The Whitechapel Boys

6. 

   John Bratby rose to prominence in 1950s Britain as one of a group of painters named after which household fitting?

   1. The kitchen sink

   2. The broom cupboard

   3. The bidet

   4. The washboard

7. 

   Mary Beale was the most successful woman artist in 17th-century Britain, superseding the achievement of her husband who worked in what profession?

   1. Butcher

   2. Barber-Surgeon

   3. Cheesemonger

   4. Colourman

8. 

   Soon after arriving in England from Italy, Giovanni Antonio Canal (known as Canaletto) became one of the most successful painters in Georgian Britain. However, his arrival sparked what false claim?

   1. That he was an Italian spy sent with poisoned gloves to murder the monarch

   2. That he was an imposter and not the real Canaletto

   3. That he was also a castrato, whose services could be solicited through an agent of the Duke of Bedford

   4. That he was only capable of painting canals

Solutions

1:B - Reynolds was a keen proponent of Greco-Roman sculpture and Italian Renaissance painting. At the Royal Academy of Arts, which he helped found in 1768, he sought to establish the continental "Grand Style" in Britain. The Pre-Raphaelites railed against Reynolds’ brusque handling of paint, which they regarded as slapdash and formulaic. Instead they called for a return to the highly detailed, colourful compositions seen in art prior to the Renaissance. 

Image: Mrs Abington as Miss Prue in Love for Love by William Congreve, 1771, oil on canvas, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792); Yale Center for British Art, 2:B - On 28 August 1843, the acclaimed painter Richard Dadd and his father went for an evening stroll around Cobham Hall in Kent. Believing his father to be possessed by a demon, Dadd slashed his throat and stabbed him in the chest, later claiming that he was acting on the instruction of the Egyptian sun god Osiris. He was declared a "lunatic criminal" and sent to Bethlem asylum. 

Image: Fish Market by the Sea, c1860, oil on canvas, Richard Dadd (1817-1886); Yale Center for British Art, 3:C - Despite being the doyen of the Jacobean court, William Larkin’s reputation faded from memory soon after his death in 1619. By the time George Vertue was gathering his materials on British art in the 18th century, Larkin’s name had been completely forgotten. This was until the early 1950s when James Lees-Milne of the National Trust linked two extant paintings at Charlecote Park to references to Larkin in Cherbury’s autobiography. 

Image: A Young Lady, Possibly Jane, Lady Thornhaugh, 1617, oil on panel, William Larkin (c1585-1619); Yale Center for British Art, 4:D - Constable’s early works were generally small and painted outdoors, but in 1819 he began to paint on a much larger scale, working sketches like this one into monumental, six-foot canvases. Like all of Constable’s "six-footers", The Hay Wain depicts rural life and displays his intense fascination with the sky. His transition to large-scale canvases helped his work stand out among the crowded displays at Royal Academy exhibitions.

 Image: Sketch for The Hay Wain, c1820, oil on canvas laid on paper, John Constable (1776-1837); Yale Center for British Art, 5:A - Fanny Eaton was widowed at a young age and became a model to support her 10 children. Eaton travelled to Britain from Jamaica, accompanied by her mother, a former slave. Joanna Wells, an artist affiliated with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, was one of many attracted by Eaton’s "exotic" beauty. This portrait may have been a study for a painting of Queen Zenobia of the Palmyrene Empire, which was never completed.

 Image: Fanny Eaton, 1861, oil on paper laid on linen, Joanna Mary Wells (1831-1861); Yale Center for British Art, 6:A - The Kitchen Sink painters were John Bratby, Edward Middleditch, Jack Smith and Derrick Greaves. The name was coined by the critic David Sylvester, who wrote in Encounter, in 1954, that their everyday subjects included "everything but the kitchen sink – the kitchen sink too." The comment referred to their social realist depictions of ordinary people and activities. The group were selected to represent Britain in the Venice Biennale in 1956.
 Image: Jean on a Step-Ladder in the Kitchen, 1956, oil on masonite, John Randall Bratby (1928-1992); © the artist’s estate/Bridgeman Images, Yale Center for British Art, 7:D - Charles Beale was an amateur painter who worked as a colourman, supplying artists with pigments. When his wife Mary began to thrive as a professional portrait painter, Charles Beale became her studio manager. Mary Beale rose to fame in Restoration Britain, gaining notice from the principal painter at court, Sir Peter Lely, whose work influenced her own. She became the breadwinner in her family, supporting her husband and two children. Image: Charles Beale the Younger, 1663-1664, oil on paper laid to canvas, Mary Beale (1633-1699); Yale Center for British Art, 8:B - Canaletto moved to London from Venice in May 1746 and took up residence in London, where he remained for 10 years, becoming a fast favourite with Georgian aristocracy. His reputation preceded him but his paintings of London and later of country houses varied in quality, leading the contemporary commentator and artist George Vertue to repeat the rumour that the man painting under the name Canaletto was impersonating the real artist. Image: Warwick Castle, 1748-1749, oil on canvas, Canaletto (1697-1768); Yale Center for British Art

Scores

1. 6 and above.

   Congratulations! If you were a Great British pudding you would be a Knickerbocker Glory

2. 3 and above.

   If you were a Great British pudding you would be a Bread and Butter Pudding

3. 0 and above.

   If you were a Great British pudding you would be an Eton mess