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THE SMILE
By THOMAS WEBSTER

THE SMILE
By THOMAS WEBSTER, R.A. (1800-1886)
IN THE GUILDHALL ART GALLERY, LONDON

Webster's father was a member of the household of George III., and the son displayed sufficient talent for music to justify his appointment as a chorister in the Chapel Royal, St. James's. Music, however, seems to have been but the first expression of his artistic soul, for he developed a strong genius for painting, and at the age of twenty-one became a student at the Royal Academy Schools. Three years later he exhibited at the Royal Academy portraits of Mrs. Robinson and family, a success which he followed up in the year following by gaining the first medal awarded in the school for painting. Thenceforward his success continued without interruption, and his pictures were a regular feature of the Academy exhibitions until 1879. In 1841 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, becoming a full Member in 1846.

His pictures are characterised by a geniality and quiet humour which made them exceedingly popular. He delighted in simple studies of familiar scenes, which he depicted without subtlety and in a manner that is especially pleasing to the English mind. Child life appealed to him very forcibly, and this again enabled him, by his paintings, to endear himself to the public. His " Going to School, or the Truant," and his " Dame's School" are in the National Gallery, while five other paintings from his brush are in the South Kensington Museum.

"The Smile," and its companion work, "The Frown," which is also in the Guildhall Gallery, have enjoyed great popularity with the general public, both in their original form, with those who could view them, and as engravings, with the wider circle of picture lovers.

From the book "Famous Paintings" Volume 2 printed in 1913.

Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
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Online "Name the Painting"

Thomas Webster
at the Tate Gallery

"A Village Choir" by Thomas Webster
Victoria and Albert Museum

"The Frown"
by Thomas Webster

Famous Paintings in this Series

James Archer My Great Grandmother	Bashkirtseff The Meeting	Bouguereau Charity	John Brett From the Dorsetshire Cliffs
Arnesby Brown The River Bank	Joseph Clark Mother's Darling	John Constable The Hay-Wain	Jean Baptiste Camille Corot The Fisherman's Hut
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot A Flood	Leonardo Da Vinci Monna Lisa	Edouard Detaille The Dream	Henri Fantin-Latour Flowers
Thomas Gainsborough Queen Charlotte	Thomas Gainsborough The Market Cart	Jean Baptiste Greuze The Head of a Girl	Jean Baptiste Greuze Fidelity
James Clark Hook Home With the Tide	Alfred William Hunt Windsor Castle	Josef Israels The Shipwrecked Mariner	B.W. Leader The Stream in Summer-time
Madame Vigee Le Brun Portrait of the Artist	Alphonse Legros A Canal With a Fisherman	Anton Mauve Watering Horses	J.L.E. Meissonier The Cavalier
Sir J.E. Millais Speak! Speak!	Sir J.E. Mallais My First Sermon	George Morland The Reckoning	George Morland The Inside of a Stable
Murillo The Immaculate Conception of the Virgin	Alfred Parsons When Nature Painted All Things Gay	Ralph Peacock The Sisters	Rembrandt Syndics of the Cloth Merchants' Guild
Guido Reni "Ecce Homo"	Sir Joshua Reynolds Portrait of Mrs. Richard Hoare With Her Infant Son	Briton Riviere The Temptation in the Wilderness	Dante Gabriel Rossetti Day Dreams
John Singer Sargent Miss Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth	Lady Stanley (Dorothy Tennant) His First Offence	Jan Steen Grace Before Meat	Marcus Stone On the Road from Waterloo to Paris
Constant Troyon Watering Cattle	H.S. Tuke "All Hands to the Pumps"	Velazquez King Philip IV. of Spain	S.E. Waller Sweethearts and Wives
Thomas Webster The Smile	Index Famous Paintings Volume 1 Art Gallery	Index Famous Paintings Volume 2 Art Gallery	Index Art Appreciation Lessons