The Art Newspaper

Shedding light on an obscure pre-Raphaelite

Decades of accumulated grime kept historians from appreciating the skill and ambition of the artist Francis Ashton Jackson

By Andrea Watson. Web only
Published online: 26 January 2012

Francis Ashton Jackson's Nativity in the chapel at the College of St Barnabas near the village of Lingfield in Surrey

The restoration of a series of panels by Francis Ashton Jackson (1868-1946) at an English chapel for retired clergy is likely to boost the reputation of this obscure painter associated with the pre-Raphaelite movement. While the paintings were believed to be by Jackson, it was not until the completion of the project to stabilise and clean the works that experts were able to fully appreciate the skill of the works and the artist.

The paintings, including the depiction of the Transfiguration on a reredos (an ornamental screen), an altar frontal and a Nativity scene, decorate the chapel at the College of St Barnabas near the village of Lingfield in Surrey. The treatment of the paintings is part of the chapel’s £25,000 restoration project.

The work, undertaken by the firm Howell & Bellion, included some regilding as well as the addition of an insulating panel to the back of the reredos. “The gilding and textured ground of the three panels of the reredos were decaying and flaking because [of their proximity to] the south window,” says warden Father Howard Such, adding: “the continual temperature fluctuations caused the backboard to expand and contract constantly which cracked the gesso and gilding.”

Identification of the St Barnabas panels to Jackson comes from an old guidebook written by a previous warden, which simply refers to “paintings by Mr. Jackson of Bodley & Co.” Historian Michael Hall says that Jackson was the British architect G.F. Bodley's ecclesiastical decorator of choice from about 1900 onwards.

Jackson was also a key member of the atelier of the prominent Victorian stained glass artist Charles Eamer Kempe, according to the late Kempe scholar Margaret Stavridi. She noted in her 1988 book on Kempe that Jackson was involved in the redecoration of the Church of St Mary Magdalene located on the Sandringham Estate, the Queen's private country retreat in Norfolk. The church is regularly used by the British Royal Family.

Father Such believes that the Nativity could prove to be Jackson’s “masterpiece” although, due to decades of accumulated grime, many people were unaware of the works.

The conservator Kevin Howell, who oversaw the work, says that while many paintings of this quality could be seen in English churches, the majority of the workaday artists and craftsmen of the Gothic Revival, were “at best obscure or entirely anonymous” figures.

“The Nativity is typical of Jackson’s style, although better preserved than most of his work for Bodley. It is very attractive, and reveals Jackson to have been a more ambitious artist than I had realised,” says Hall.

An expert from the Courtauld is set to examine the paintings shortly.