Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
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Chantrey Bequest
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/james-pryde-1804" aria-label="More by James Pryde" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">James Pryde</a>
Doctor
Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1940
adults
architecture
baby
bed
bedroom
birth
birth to death
chair
children
curtain
doctor
domestic
door
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fine arts and music
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<p>This is the first of a series of pictures Pryde entitled ‘The Human Comedy’. Each painting is dominated by a four-poster bed, based on Pryde’s childhood memory of the magnificent bed in Mary Queen of Scots’ bedroom at Holyrood Palace. The artist remarked: ‘a bed is an important idea. Look what happens on it and how much of our lives we spend on it’. The dramatic shadows and macabre aura of expectancy in <span>The Doctor</span> function like a scene in a play; indeed, Pryde was a set and poster designer in the theatre.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2016</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
28 April 2003 – 18 April 2004
2004-04-18
28 April 2003 – 18 April 2004
2004-04-18
2003-04-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-04-28
Decadence
Collection based display
16 December 2006 – 18 November 2007
2007-11-18
16 December 2006 – 18 November 2007
2007-11-18
2006-12-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-12-16
Intimate Interiors
Collection based display
18 July 2009 – 11 October 2009
2009-10-11
18 July 2009 – 11 October 2009
2009-10-11
2009-07-18
National Galleries of Scotland (Edinburgh, UK)
2009-07-18
Imagining Spain: From Goya to Picasso, The British and Spain
Loan-out
7 May 2019 – 4 August 2019
2019-08-04
7 May 2019 – 4 August 2019
2019-08-04
2019-05-07
Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, UK)
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk
2019-05-07
The Beggarstaffs: James Pryde and William Nicholson
Loan-out
The Doctor
support: 857 × 719 mm
frame: 1023 × 902 × 130 mm
Presented by the Trustees of the <a href="/search?gid=999999977" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Chantrey Bequest</a> 1940
<div class="text">
<p>This is the first of a series of pictures Pryde entitled ‘The Human Comedy’. Each painting is dominated by a four-poster bed, based on Pryde’s childhood memory of the magnificent bed in Mary Queen of Scots’ bedroom at Holyrood Palace. The artist remarked: ‘a bed is an important idea. Look what happens on it and how much of our lives we spend on it’. The dramatic shadows and macabre aura of expectancy in <i>The Doctor</i> function like a scene in a play; indeed, Pryde was a set and poster designer in the theatre.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2016-02-24T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N05172</b>	THE DOCTOR <i>c.</i> 1908</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Not inscribed.
<br/>Canvas, 33 3/4×28 1/4 (85·5×72).
<br/>Chantrey Purchase from the Leicester Galleries 1940.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> W. H. Jessop 1910; Sir Edmund Davis 1913, sold Christie's, 7 July 1939 (86), bought Leicester Galleries.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> International Society, New Gallery, January–February 1909 (189), as ‘The Doctor (No.1 of a series of twelve pictures entitled “The Human Comedy”)’; <i>Twenty Years of </i>British Art 1890–1910, Whitechapel Art Gallery, May–June 1910 (525); Royal Glasgow Institute, September–November 1913 (209); R.A., 1941 (193); Brighton and Tate Gallery, July–October 1949 (18).
<br/><i>Lit:</i>
T. Martin Wood, ‘The Edmund Davis Collection II’ in <i>Studio</i>, LXIV, 1915, p.236, repr. p.233; H. Granville Fell, ‘James Pryde, Painter’ in <i>Apollo</i>, XII, 1930, p.356; Herbert Furst, ‘Standards of Criticism’ in <i>Apollo</i>, XXXVI, 1942, pp.87–9, repr.; Hudson, 1949, p.56, repr. frontispiece (in colour).</p>
<p>This is No.1 of a series of pictures entitled ‘The Human Comedy’, all of which are dominated by a large four-poster bed inspired, according to Hudson, by Pryde's memories of the four-poster in Mary Queen of Scots' bedroom at Holyrood. H. Granville Fell quotes Pryde as having said, when asked how he came to attach so much importance to the bed idea, ‘Well, a bed is an important idea. Look what happens on it and how much of our lives we spend on it.’ Other known pictures in the series, which occupied Pryde for much of his career, are ‘The Derelict’ (Lord Cowdray), ‘The Red Bed’ (Scottish Modern Arts' Association), ‘Lumber: a Silhouette’ (Major A. C. J. Congreve), ‘The Broker's Man’ (the Hon. Mrs Ionides), ‘The Grave’ (Tate Gallery, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/pryde-the-grave-n04488" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04488</span></a>) and ‘The Death Bed’ (formerly Payne Whitney Collection, New York; repr. Hudson, <i>op. cit.</i>, pl.20).</p>
<p>Sir Edmund Davis, who owned this picture and the sketch for it, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/pryde-sketch-for-the-doctor-n05376" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05376</span></a>, was an important patron of Pryde's, lending him a studio in Lansdowne House, Holland Park, from 1914. 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/g/gouache" title="Glossary definition for 'Gouache'"><span>gouache</span></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/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> for the figure of the doctor was sold at Sotheby's, 28 March 1962 (26, with 3 others), bt. Colnaghi.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture baby bed bedroom birth birth to death chair children curtain doctor domestic door features fine arts and music furnishings interiors man medical natural phenomena objects people picture shadow society woman work and occupations