3-017-325 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Two Yorkshire Bairns," by J. Deffet Francis, in the Wakefield Fine-Art and Industrial Exhibition, 1865. Engraving of a painting. 'The genuine native race of Yorkshire folk are a fine robust breed, whose physical constitution is equal to that of any other stock of the English, Scottish, or Irish populations. Mr. Francis seems to have made these varieties of race within the limits of our common nationality a subject of particular study: and in an artistic point of view, as well as connected with interesting historical and ethnological questions, it is certainly worthy of attention. The two young persons whose portraits he has given are excellent specimens of their race. We believe Mr. Francis has rendered essential service to the Wakefield committee in arranging and hanging the fine-art contributions to the exhibition...His own contribution is a charming work, giving, in a bright Venetian key of colour, the beauty of peasant life without its squalor, and commending itself specially by the natural expression and gesture of the girl, so proudly nursing her little brother, and by the childish beauty of the little bairn her charge'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.