Images of Christ: The Presence in the Midst

Rowena Loverance considers a familiar image of Christ

Almost all the art works in this series have been either in churches or in public galleries. Last month’s was the nearest I could come to an image of Christ in an outside space. But I also wanted to point you towards one in a domestic space. And that’s what led me to Peckover House in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and an engraving of the image of Christ which is probably best known to Quakers:
J Doyle Penrose’s The Presence in the Midst.

The Peckovers, who lived in the house for 150 years, were both Quakers and bankers. Jonathan Peckover established a bank in Wisbech in 1782; his son William and grandson Alexander managed it in turn until 1896, when it was amalgamated into what was to become Barclays. The Peckovers also left their mark on the wider townscape of Wisbech. William and his brother Algernon were responsible for many of the distinguished Georgian buildings which still survive in the town. They were a cultured family, and many of them were talented artists – an extraordinary number of their watercolours survive, mostly of topographical scenes in the UK and abroad.

In 1896 the eldest of Alexander Peckover’s three daughters, Elizabeth Josephine, married the Dublin-born artist, James Doyle Penrose. They made their home in Watford, where they brought up their four sons, but retained their links with Wisbech. When the last Peckover, Elizabeth’s sister Alexandrina, died in 1948, Peckover House had been gifted to the National Trust, but its contents were dispersed. However, in recent years the National Trust has worked to redisplay it in a way which honours the different generations of Peckovers and their Quaker history.

James Doyle Penrose was a well-regarded painter who specialised in portraits and scenes of Norse mythology. He had depicted some religious subjects, such as the Venerable Bede translating John’s Gospel (The Last Chapter, 1902, Cambridge University Library), but his two wartime works come from a deeper place. He explained the origins of The Presence in the Midst in a letter to the Friend in December 1916, describing a visit he made to Jordans Meeting House one autumn afternoon: ‘There seemed to rise before me a picture of the past. The benches were once more filled with those early Friends, the builders of our society… The idea of showing in some way that this was the secret of their power, the close and intimate connection between Christ Himself and the soul of His humble follower wherever he is, took hold of me and I determined to try and paint a picture embodying this idea’. Two years later he painted its companion piece, None Shall Make Them Afraid, portraying the occasion in 1775 when an aggressive band of Native Americans burst in on a Meeting for Worship in rural New York, and left in silence.

Penrose’s painting – the original is in the Library at Friends House – keeps us in touch with Quakers who had a more personal understanding of Jesus than many of us do today. Among the collections in Peckover House are some handwritten verses of an eighteenth century hymn, with the comment ‘lines quoted by Miss AP not long before her death’. This may refer to Algerina, Alexander’s sister: she certainly used these same lines in her own tribute to her sister Wilhemina in the Friend in March 1910:

I have seen the face of Jesus
Tell me not of aught beside
I have heard the voice of Jesus
All my soul is satisfied

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Comments

Thanks for this reminder of a somewhat forgotten painting - now probably better known in the US, particularly among evangelical Friends. And James Doyle Penrose’s son (Sir) Roland Penrose achieved greater fame than his father - as a surrealist artist, friend of Picasso and other artists, founding director of the ICA and a trustee of the Tate. Roland and two of his three brothers served in the Friends Ambulance Unit in WW1 after attending the FAU training camp at Jordans. Groups of FAU trainess were also welcomed at the Penrose home in Watford so it’s likely that JDP was a frequent visitor to Jordans. He and Josephine and son Lionel are buried there.

By Simon C on 20th December 2017 - 11:26

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