The Fight Interrupted

The Fight Interrupted
Artist	William Mulready
Year	1816
Type	Oil on panel, genre painting
Dimensions	71.8 cm× 93.2 cm(28.3 in× 36.7 in)
Location	Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Fight Interrupted is an 1816 genre painting by the Irish artist William Mulready. ^{[1] [2]} It depicts a schoolyard fight between two boys having been broken up by the schoolmaster, who listens to the conflicting accounts of the brawl from his students. Mulready used his own father as the model for the teacher. ^[3]

The painting was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1816 at Somerset House in London and was one of the best received works on display. Many drew parallels between the youthful display of boxing and the recent British military success in the Napoleonic Wars culminating in the Battle of Waterloo. ^[4] It consolidated Mulready's growing reputation following his election as a member of the Royal Academy. ^[5] Today the painting is part of the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, having been donated by the art collector John Sheepshanks in 1857. ^[6]

References

1. Roe p.349
2. https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-fight-interrupted-31027
3. Solkin p.128
4. Solkin p.130-132
5. Solkin p.126-27
6. Victoria and Albert Museum

Bibliography

• Roe, Sonia. Oil Paintings in Public Ownership in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Public Catalogue Foundation, 2008.
• Solkin, David H. Painting Out of the Ordinary: Modernity and the Art of Everyday Life in Early Nineteenth-century Britain. Yale University Press, 2009.
• Wright, Christopher, Gordon, Catherine May & Smith, Mary Peskett. British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections: An Index of British and Irish Oil Paintings by Artists Born Before 1870 in Public and Institutional Collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Yale University Press, 2006.