Maternal Affection

Patten, the precocious son of a miniature painter, specialised in figure painting and portraiture. He exhibited this work at the British Institution in London in 1833 when one reviewer observed: ‘it is a chaste and beautiful production worthy of being placed in the best room in the best house in the metropolis.’ When the painting failed to sell, Patten sent it to the following year’s Liverpool Academy exhibition. There it won the £50 prize, and was the foundation of his later success with the city’s patrons.