Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-morland-385" aria-label="More by George Morland" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">George Morland</a>
Outside an Inn Winter
Bequeathed by Mrs Mary Venetia James 1948
adults
agriculture, gardening & fishing
animals: mammals
architecture
dog, spaniel
door
features
hill
horse
landscape
man
objects
people
pig
places of entertainment
public house / bar
seasons
snow
tree
trough
weather
winter
woman
<p>George Morland was known for painting rustic country life. Here, he depicts a man departing from an inn, watched by a child from the open doorway. The traveller’s thick coat and shiny top hat suggests his affluence, in contrast with the humble inn keeper, who keeps a pig for food. The scene’s stark surroundings underscore the hardship of rural life. However, Morland may have been appealing to the popular market for simple, picturesque country scenes. At this time Morland began working on a smaller scale and often recycled compositions in order to increase his output. This painting is similar to an earlier print, and doorway exchanges regularly feature in Morland’s work.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2024</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
22 October 2001 – 23 March 2003
2003-03-23
22 October 2001 – 23 March 2003
2003-03-23
2001-10-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-22
Landscape and Empire
Collection based display
1 April 2003 – 12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-04-01
Images of Rural Life
Collection based display
26 September 2022
26 September 2022
2022-09-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 15
Collection based display
Outside an Inn, Winter
support: 718 × 921 mm
Bequeathed by Mrs Mary Venetia James 1948
<div class="text">
<p>In Morland’s painting, <i>Outside an Inn</i>, on a winter’s evening, a traveller pays an innkeeper for her hospitality as a child watches the exchange from the doorway. The innkeeper and the child, who has no shoes, are wrapped up in layers against the cold. Their appearance contrasts with that of the traveller, who wears a heavy winter coat, boots, and a riding hat. Their animals are also contrasting: the pig is a food source for the innkeeper, while the horse and the spaniel are for the traveller’s leisure.</p>
<p>A sign above the inn door has been used to hold the signature of the artist, George Morland. The scene is framed by the inn and a drinking trough, which are angled so that the viewer’s eye is drawn to a building on the horizon. The open ground between the two buildings, the bare tree and the pig without shelter emphasise the isolation and hardship faced by the inhabitants of the desolate landscape.</p>
<p>Morland is known for his scenes of the countryside and rural life. He produced as many as 4,000 paintings and drawings, with the height of his popularity between 1780 and 1800. His career, health, and reputation were marred by debt from drinking and gambling, a narrative which was reinforced by biographers after his death and has, until recently, distracted scholars from examining the subjects of his works. Morland’s prolific output meant he rarely titled his works, which were often assigned titles based on prints made after the work, or by one of its owners, which was likely the case with <i>Outside an Inn, Winter</i>.</p>
<p>
<i>Outside of an Inn, Winter</i> was painted c.1795, a period in which Morland changed his London lodgings every few weeks, purportedly to avoid his creditors. By 1792 Morland reduced the scale of his works to increase productivity, and in that year was licenced by his creditors to paint two pictures a month to pay his debts (David Alexander et al., p.66.) He evidently made some exceptions to attract attention at the Royal Academy in 1791 as <i>Inside of a Stable</i> (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morland-inside-of-a-stable-n01030" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01030</span></a>) is the largest of his known works and is characterised by carefully considered paint handling and palette. <i>Outside an Inn, Winter</i>, in contrast, is small enough to be carried by one person and  has less refined brushwork, indicating that it may have been painted in haste.</p>
<p>Morland increased his productivity by recycling compositions and themes of non-descript locations. <i>Outside an Inn, Winter </i>shares many similarities with <i>The First September Evening</i> (British Museum, London, acc. no.1872,0511.221), a print published about a year before and engraved by Morland’s brother-in-law, William Ward (1766–1826). Morland’s painting features a similar composition to the print, with the inn in the foreground, but relocates the tree, horse and water trough. He also presents the scene in a different season and reimagines the interaction between the innkeeper and the patrons. The popularity of the print may have encouraged Morland to produce more paintings of the same narrative, such as <i>Door of a Village Inn </i>(Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morland-door-of-a-village-inn-n01351" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01351</span></a>). The scene outside an inn was so ubiquitous with Morland that he featured it in his self-portraits, with several print versions published after his death.</p>
<p>John Barrell argues that scenes such as <i>Outside of an Inn, Winter</i> were used by Morland to highlight social tensions between the classes (Barrell, p.128.) Morland presents the interaction as a professional exchange between patron and customer, suitable to be displayed in the home. Anne Wyburn-Powell criticises Barrell’s approach and argues that he is applying a twentieth-century perspective to the painting’s interpretation. She notes that Morland’s earliest biographers credited his scenes for being faithful to his experience of country living. Such a scene appealed to contemporary audience’s notions of virtue and benevolence, while the rural setting evoked a sense of picturesque nostalgia (Ann Wyburn-Powell, pp.60–62.)</p>
<p>
<b>Further Reading</b>
</p>
<p>David Alexander et al., <i>George Morland: Art, Traffic and Society in Late Eighteenth Century England,</i> Leeds 2015.<br/>John Barrell, <i>The Dark Side of the Landscape: The Rural Poor in English Painting, 1730</i>–<i>1840</i>, Cambridge 1980.<br/>Ann Wyburn-Powell, ‘George Morland (1763–1804): Beyond Barrell: Re-Examining Textual and Visual Sources’, <i>British Art Journal</i> 7, no. 1 (2006), pp.55–64.</p>
<p>Rhian Addison McCreanor<br/>December 2022</p>
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Summary
2023-06-06T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>George Morland was known for painting rustic country life. Here, he depicts a man departing from an inn, watched by a child from the open doorway. The traveller’s thick coat and shiny top hat suggests his affluence, in contrast with the humble inn keeper, who keeps a pig for food. The scene’s stark surroundings underscore the hardship of rural life. However, Morland may have been appealing to the popular market for simple, picturesque country scenes. At this time Morland began working on a smaller scale and often recycled compositions in order to increase his output. This painting is similar to an earlier print, and doorway exchanges regularly feature in Morland’s work. </p>
</div>

Display caption
2024-02-27T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
adults agriculture, gardening & fishing animals: mammals architecture dog, spaniel door features hill horse landscape man objects people pig places of entertainment public house / bar seasons snow tree trough weather winter woman