'Finishing Touches' by Alfred Emslie

Has anyone ever seen or read information about the present whereabouts of this painting?

 

It's notable for depicting  a Black artist at work with his wife and daughter in a domestic interior that is part studio and part parlour.  I have long hoped for the re-emergence of  the original on which this illustration is based.

The painting was included in the spring exhibition of 1878 at the Dudley Gallery in London (no.384)  It was placed on the line  so must have been regarded as worthy of notice.

It's not clear if the original was in oils or watercolour - which the Dudley favoured - but the artist is shown in working in oils on a standard-sized portrait canvas, albeit with an elaborate frame already in place, perhaps justified by the title, since final touches could be added up to and beyond exhibition.  The figure on the canvas looks to be three-quarter or full-length.  The whole image is however an invented scene.  It was engraved for the Illustrated London News  (13 April 1878, p.337) 

There are two critical comments on the picture from the ILN,  which have to be slightly censored but still retain their offensive quality.

The first (9 March 1878, p 219) is brief:

'Nor is Alfred Emslie's "Finishing Touches" (384) - a swell n**** painting his wife's portrait - destitute of the comic element; and, though the pigment here and there seems forced, may be regarded as in keeping with the negro sense of colour'.

The second (ILN 13 April 1878, p.339) accompanied the engraving:

'Mr Alfed E Emslie has produced an amusing picture in which he sets forth the imitative nature of the negro.  The artist's profile has a touch of the Caucasian about it; and it is this element in his nature which has no doubt prompted him to become a painter; but in the determined action of his extended leg, throwing the whole of his left side  into a straight line, forming the hypotenuse  of the right-angled triangle into which, by the aid of his dressing gown, the rest of the figure falls, is seen the extravagance of the negro.  The ladylike repose of his sitter - who is likely to be his wife and the mother of the ebony little cherub who clambers up so gleefully behind the artist's chair - was probably learned from her white mistress, before the great war in America set the slaves free. We see how apt a pupil she is; and although she cannot change her skin or alter her features, there is a kindly intelligence beaming in her face  and a quiet gentleness in her whole air and aspect, that one feels to be ladylike.  The original picture, which we noticed at the time of its exhibition in the Dudley Gallery, where it occupied the line, is full of sparkling colour.' 

The whole of this is an eloquent example of Victorian racism that does not perceive its racism, but nonetheless seems to regard Emslie's picture as a provocation.

[A good copy of the engraving is in the British Museums collection (2010,7033.6) presented by Donato Esposito]