Rare late Victorian steel engraving by the Scottish-born artist John Robertson Reid, (1851-1926). Typical of his genre work, it shows an old fisherman holding in thralll, three children while he spins his tales.
Reid spent his early working life in Surrey and later, after 1880, in Cornwall. Twenty or so years on, he settled in London and was a painting companion of the young Winston Churchill. Most of his genre work was set-up and he was known to pay local people to be the subjects for his paintings. This work dates from his early Cornwall years, with a background of a typical small Cornish port set around a rocky coast with the old man and the children in the foreground.
Reid exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1885-1911. In 1886 he became president of the Society of British Artists and the president of the Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers in 1898.
The engraving was by James Dobie, (1849-1911).
Signed by Reid in the plate and in pencil. Signed also by Dobie in Pencil.
Printed on the superior Japon paper.
550 x 360 mm. Image size.
A little time stained.
Framed and mounted.