May Day (painting)

For the later painting by Benjamin Robert Haydon, see Punch or May Day.

May Day
Artist	William Collins
Year	1812
Type	Oil on canvas, genre painting
Dimensions	94 cm× 111.8 cm(37 in× 44.01 in)
Location	Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

May Day is an oil on canvas genre painting by the British artist William Collins, from 1812. ^[1]

History and description

It depicts a group of revellers celebrating the traditional May Day festival, outside an English village inn, possibly on the outskirts of London. Young chimney sweeps in costume are shown begging for coins, while a May Queen dances to the beat of a drum. ^[2] It was entered into the British Institution's annual exhibition. ^[3] Collins was paid 150 guineas for the painting. ^[4] Today it is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art, in New Haven. ^[5]

References

1. Cameron p.52
2. Solkin p.168-69
3. Solkin p.168
4. Peters p.14
5. Yale Center for British Art

Bibliography

• Cameron, David Kerr. The English Fair. Sutton Publishing, 1998.
• Peters, Catherine. The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. Princeton University Press, 2014.
• Solkin, David H. Painting Out of the Ordinary: Modernity and the Art of Everyday Life in Early Nineteenth-century Britain. Yale University Press, 2009.