Four in Hand

Charles Burton Barber (1845-1894) was born in Great Yarmouth, his talent brought him to the Royal Academy Schools in London, where he gained a silver medal in 1864 for drawing from the antique. His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time in 1866 and many times thereafter and his pictures achieved great popularity and were widely reproduced. He specialised in child and animal genre pictures, though he painted most of these to provide an income rather than for his own satisfaction: certain of their popularity, the dealers wanted nothing else from him. ‘Painting for one’s own pleasure is delightful’', he wrote in 1894, ‘but manufacturing pictures for the market is the very devil’. His genuine interest lay in painting animals but he would have liked to have placed them in naturalistic settings and not in the sentimental situations demanded by the Victorian public. Queen Victoria named him as one of her favourite artists, summoning him frequently to her residences to paint her grandchildren or pets, and recommending him to other members of her family. Despite this royal patronage and the general popularity of his work, however, Barber modestly shunned publicity and was himself virtually unknown. He could doubtless have profited by royal favours and earned himself many commissions, but he preferred to live a quiet life, working slowly and meticulously on each painting and consequently producing little work. Barber lived in London where he died in 1894.

255gsm Art Paper

Our standard prints are reproduced on a premium semi matt finish paper. Its micro-porous resin coating provides exceptional colour accuracy and stability

315gsm Museum Quality Watercolour Art Board, Acid Free

Our watercolour board has a natural white finish with a slightly structured, soft-textured surface equivalent to a traditional etching fine art paper. The surface has a special matte coating, designed for high quality fine art reproduction with giclée technology. It is an archival quality paper with great colour accuracy.

Standard Delivery

Standard Delivery items are usually dispatched within 2 working days of the order being placed. We aim to deliver within:

3-5 working days for UK
4-7 working days for Europe
7-10 working days for USA, Canada, Fast East, Australasia and the rest of the world.

Delivery Prices

Standard UK delivery from £3.50
Europe & the rest of the world from £8.00
All prints will be tissue wrapped, bubble wrapped and packed into robust cardboard tubes.