Newsmongers

Newsmongers
Artist	David Wilkie
Year	1821
Type	Oil on mahogany, genre painting
Dimensions	43.7 cm × 36.1 cm (17.2 in × 14.2 in)
Location	Tate Britain, London

Newsmongers is an 1821 genre painting by the Scottish artist David Wilkie. It portrays a group gathered around a man and woman holding up a newspaper.^[1] The group includes a baker carrying a pie and roast joint. ^[2] The news being read is not specified, but its been speculated that might be news of the Napoleonic Wars or the more recent Trial of Queen Caroline.^[3]

The work was commissioned by General Edmund Phipps, the brother of the politician and art collector Lord Mulgrave.^[4] It was displayed at the Royal Academy's 1821 Summer Exhibition.^[5] It is now in the collection of Tate Britain, having been acquired for the nation via Robert Vernon in 1847.^[6]

References

1. Noon & Bann p.110
2. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wilkie-newsmongers-n00331
3. Tromans p.89
4. Tromans p.89
5. Tromans p.11
6. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wilkie-newsmongers-n00331

Bibliography

• Noon, Patrick & Bann, Stephen. Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics. Tate, 2003.
• Tromans, Nicholas. David Wilkie: The People's Painter. Edinburgh University Press, 2007.