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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-luke-fildes-183" aria-label="More by Sir Luke Fildes" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Sir Luke Fildes</a>
Doctor
Presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
bowl
boy
chair
children
cup / mug
dawn
diseases and conditions
doctor
domestic
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
furnishings
heating and lighting
hope
illness
individuals: male
interiors
jug
kitchen
light / lamp
living room
looking / watching
lying down
man
medical
Murray, Gustavus, Dr
named individuals
objects
people
pillow
portraits
sitting
sleeping
times of the day
vessels and containers
work and occupations
<p>This painting depicts a child showing the first signs of recovery following a period of grave illness. The subject matter relates to a bereavement suffered by Fildes, when in 1877 his first son died at home at the age of one. Here, the figure of the doctor stands as a symbol of quiet professional devotion, capturing, as Fildes put it, ‘the status of the doctor of our time’. Behind the child, a working class father and mother anxiously await the doctor’s assessment. The sliver of dawn light at the window suggests renewed hope in the face of near-tragedy.</p><p><em>Gallery label, March 2022</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
29 August 2001 – 25 July 2005
2005-07-25
29 August 2001
2001-08-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-29
Art and Victorian Society
Collection based display
1 November 2010 – 28 February 2011
2011-02-28
1 November 2010 – 28 February 2011
2011-02-28
2010-11-01
Museu Picasso (Barcelona, Spain)
2010-11-01
Ciencia y Caridad and Related Works
Loan-out
19 May 2012 – 2 December 2012
2012-12-02
19 May 2012 – 2 December 2012
2012-12-02
2012-05-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-05-19
Victorian Sentimentality
Collection based display
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
The Doctor
support: 1664 × 2419 mm
frame: 2075 × 2875 × 210 mm
Presented by <a href="/search?gid=999999962" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Sir Henry Tate</a> 1894
<p>In 1890 Sir Henry Tate (1819-98) commissioned a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> from Luke Fildes, the subject of which was left to his own discretion. The artist chose to recall a personal tragedy of his own, when in 1877 his first son, Philip, had died at the age of one in his Kensington home. Fildes’ son and biographer wrote: ‘The character and bearing of their doctor throughout the time of their anxiety, made a deep impression on my parents. Dr. Murray became a symbol of professional devotion which would day inspire the painting of <i>The Doctor’ </i>(Fildes, p.46). Fildes invented a new setting and characters for his painting, and in 1890 he made several sketches of a fisherman’s cottage in Hope Cove in Devon. He used this visual evidence to build a replica of the cottage in a corner of his studio in Melbury Road so he could experiment with the effects of lamplight while dawn was breaking in to the dark interior. The doctor bears some resemblance to Fildes himself. However he may have used more than one model for this figure, his ambition being ‘to put on record the status of the doctor of our time’, rather than to record the likeness of any one individual (<i>The Times</i> 17 March 1891). The child was painted from studies of the head of his daughter Phyllis and the arm of his son, Geoffrey (Treuherz, p.89). Fildes made a number of sketches for the painting, six of which are preserved in the Tate archive. Although hastily drawn, one sketch reveals that the artist’s original intention was to place the doctor on the right hand side of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> observing the boy who is seated in an armchair, rather than laid out flat across two kitchen chairs. In the background the position of the husband and wife has also been reversed although their physical gestures are the same as in the finished picture. The most detailed part of this sketch is the grave expression on the doctor’s face which is the focal point in the final version. The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> of this study is similar to a smaller oil study of the painting in the Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pennsylvania.
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<br/>Fildes wrote to Tate later in 1890 to re-assure him about the subject of the painting and, he added, ‘all other questions as [to] pictorial excellence, conduct of treatment must be left unprejudiced by this sketch – which has been done vaguely purposely to leave me as free handed as possible in the artist’s arrangement and treatment of the very large picture – but there is <span>no</span> vagueness whatsoever about the subject, <span>that </span>you can see clearly enough and <span>that</span> I understand, is what you first desire to be satisfied about ...’ (TGA 7811.2.25). A fortnight later in a letter to his brother in law, the artist Henry Woods (1846-1921), Fildes described Tate’s reaction to the sketch: ‘I fancy he was pleased with the idea and when I told him I should require £3000, he assented and letters were passed to that effect’ (quoted in Fildes, p.118).
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<br/>In the final version of <i>The Doctor </i>Fildes paints a young child in a rustic interior lying across two chairs, his pale face illuminated by the glass lamp on the table. The doctor, dressed in a tailored suit, sits beside the makeshift bed looking down at his patient anxiously. The boy’s father, standing in the background with his hand on the shoulder of his wife whose hands are clasped as if in prayer, looks in to the grave face of the doctor. Their humble lifestyle is evident from the pewter, the scrap of carpet on the stone floor and their ragged clothing. The extent of the youth’s illness can be seen by the half empty medicine bottle on the table, and the bowl and jug, used to relieve the boy’s temperature, on the bench. The bits of paper on the floor could be prescriptions made out by the doctor for medicine now already taken. Fildes described the shaft of daylight as signifying the imminent recovery of the child. He wrote: ‘At the cottage window the dawn begins to steal in – the dawn that is the critical time of all deadly illnesses – and with it the parents again take hope into their hearts, the mother hiding her face to escape giving vent to her emotion, the father laying his hand on the shoulder of his wife in encouragement of the first glimmerings of the joy which is to follow’ (Simon Wilson, <i>Tate Gallery: An Illustrated Companion, </i>London 1997, p.90).
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<br/>One year after Tate’s commission, <i>The Doctor </i>was exhibited at the Royal Academy. Agnews immediately published an <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraving</span></a> of it which sold over one million copies in the United States alone and became one of the most profitable <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> made by the firm. The popularity of the painting confirms the popularity of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/social-realism" title="Glossary definition for 'Social Realism'"><span>social realism</span></a> in art at this time, and Fildes was one of a number of artists, including Frank Holl (1845-88) and Hubert von Herkomer (1849-1914), whose paintings of the hardships of working class life were widely reproduced in <i>The Graphic </i>magazine. <i>The Doctor </i>was one of the fifty-seven pictures offered by Henry Tate as a gift to the nation in 1897.
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<br/><b>Further reading:</b>
<br/>
<br/>L. V. Fildes, <i>Luke Fildes RA, A Victorian Painter, </i>London: 1968, reproduced p.114
<br/>Alice A. Meyer, ‘The Doctor’, <i>The Guthrie Bulletin, </i>43:4, April 1974, pp.155-169, reproduced p.161
<br/>Albert Rinsler, ‘The Doctor’, <i>Journal of Medical Biography </i>1993:1, pp.165-70, reproduced p.166
<br/>Julian Treuherz, <i>Hard Times: Social Realism in Victorian Art, </i>exhibition catalogue, London 1987, pp.86-9, reproduced p.88
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<br/>Heather Birchall
<br/>September 2003</p>

Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div><p><span>This painting depicts a child showing the first signs of recovery following a period of grave illness. The subject matter relates to a bereavement suffered by Luke Fildes, when in 1877 his first son died at home at the age of one. Here, the figure of the doctor stands as a symbol of quiet professional devotion, capturing, Fildes said, ‘the status of the doctor of our time’. The working-class father and mother anxiously await the doctor’s assessment. The sliver of dawn light at the window suggests renewed hope in the face of near-tragedy.</span></p></div>
Online caption
2024-04-22T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults bowl boy chair children cup / mug dawn diseases and conditions doctor domestic emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas furnishings heating and lighting hope illness individuals: male interiors jug kitchen light / lamp living room looking / watching lying down man medical Murray, Gustavus, Dr named individuals objects people pillow portraits sitting sleeping times of the day vessels and containers work and occupations