Only three pictures by Mr. Cooper hang in the hall proper. These are over the mantelpiece. One of these is peculiarly interesting—a group of three sheep, a calf, and a cow, painted three years ago. The work was the result of a dream. The Royal Academician dreamt he was painting this very scene. In the morning he got up and chronicled it on canvas. Ascending the grand old staircase, a huge space is taken up by "Separated, but not Divorced," painted in 1875, and is a study of a magnificent short-horn bull, "Charlie" by name. It was exhibited, but proved too big to sell. Just by the bull's foreleg is a raven pecking at a bone. The artist was asked why he put it there.
"Oh!" he replied, "I wanted a little bit of relieving black and white. Besides, if there is a Crown case over it, it will typify the lawyers picking at the bones."
But "Charlie" is interesting for other reasons. It represents a triumph of art. Mrs. Cooper did not like the bull's head, and said so. Mr. Cooper made up his mind to paint in another head. It took a long time—many and many were the attempts to put a new head on old shoulders, and the one now in the picture took as long to paint as all the rest of the picture. It is a remarkably real and brilliant effort. The other large picture by Mr. Cooper is "Isaac's Substitute," painted in 1880—a Scotch ram the only object in the picture being Isaac's substitute. It was suggested one day after reading the words from Genesis xxii. 13: "And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns." Close by are some sheep painted on the 26th September, 1874, on the occasion of the artist's seventy-first birthday. It was completed in five hours, and here it should be mentioned that for the last twenty years Mr. Cooper has always painted a finished canvas on his birthday—pictures which are never sold.
SIDNEY COOPER, AGE 38.
From a Painting by Scott.
A peep into Mrs. Cooper's room revealed something that says much for the continued determination of purpose which has always characterized the great painter's life, and his extraordinary and persistent powers of endurance under great suffering. I had noted some excellent copies of his father's works by Mr. Neville Cooper, and a portrait of the Royal Academician himself, painted by Scott in 1841. Also an old donkey, done in 1835, belonging to Mrs. Cooper—Mr. Cooper has been twice married—seeing that it was painted in the year in which she was born. Two water colour drawings were then shown to me. They were artistic reminiscences of his severe illness last year. Beneath a group of cows were written these words: "Painted in bed, November, 1893, for my dear wife for her nursing.—T.S.C., R.A." The other was some sheep in the snow—reproduced in these pages—and inscribed: "To Neville. Painted in bed, with bronchitis, November, 1893.—T.S.C., R.A." Such efforts as these betoken much. It is a significant fact that Sidney Cooper was the last country patient the late Sir Andrew Clark ever visited, for he was struck down four days afterwards. The great physician's words on saying "Good-bye" to Mrs. Cooper were: "I never met a man at eighty with more vitality in him than your husband, and he is ninety!" and he added, upon being thanked for his prompt attendance: "I look upon this as being one of the events of my life."
PICTURE PAINTED DURING LAST ILLNESS.
