Mr. and Mrs. Hill

Arthur Devis was one of the most prolific painters of conversation pieces, often working for the families of country gentry with aspirations to refinement and polite taste. Mr. and Mrs. Hill are just such a couple, posed before an Italianate landscape painting in a stucco frame and a Chinese vase in the fireplace. A table made from West Indian mahogany is set for tea with a Chinese porcelain service, an English redware teapot in imitation of Chinese ceramics, and a silver milk jug. Mr. Hill’s stance reflects formal etiquette for gentlemen, rules that Devis continued to use in his paintings while poses used by other artists in their portraits began to suggest greater spontaneity and psychological depth. In a period when Britons worried about the enervating effects of luxury, Devis provides an image of Mr. and Mrs. Hill as models of polite rectitude. Despite their consumption of refined objects from around the world, the interior remains remarkably austere, a reflection of the couple’s own moral probity.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016