Crome's reputation

There are many factors at work in the waxing and waning fortunes of Crome’s reputation over the last two hundred years.

Fashion and taste, exhibitions and championing by writers all play a part, as do substandard paintings ascribed to him and etchings altered by others after his death.  Crome only had sixteen years to make an impact, against Constable’s thirty-five and Turner’s astonishing sixty years’ career. London was at the epicentre of the British art world. Whereas Crome remained in Norwich, Turner and Constable were entirely committed to the capital’s art scene - Constable deliberately painting ‘six-footers’ to attract attention in the heaving rooms of the Royal Academy.

Finally, his better-known rivals earned their living as professional artists while Crome was principally a drawing master; although the quality of his output is entirely comparable to theirs, the sheer quantity is not. Crome exhibited 306 paintings and drawings in his lifetime and in 1968 Derek and Timothy Clifford identified only 118 paintings and ninety-eight drawings as genuine. In contrast, over 2,500 paintings and drawings by Constable are known, and Turner’s output is estimated at roughly 550 paintings and a staggering 32,000 drawings and watercolours.  Turner also had the foresight to ensure his legacy by bequeathing around 300 oils and 30,000 sketches and watercolours to the nation.

In the face of such figures, it is clear why Turner and Constable are better known than Crome. However, it is the freshness and quality of Crome’s scarce works that still makes them stand out in the crowded field of nineteenth-century British landscape painting.