The Blind Beggar

Artist: Josephus Laurentius Dyckmans (Belgian, 1811 - 1888)

Original Dimensions: 19 3/4" x 18 1/4"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (1853) "An old man leans against the wall of a church, tilting his head towards the light shining down on the scene. A little girl leans towards him, her hand outstretched as if begging. The pair are shabby but spotlessly clean. Their skin glows in the light; the man’s beard, painted strand by strand with a brush with a single hair, is combed and meticulous. This painting, perhaps a little sentimental to modern eyes, was intended for the nineteenth-century middle-class home, where charity towards the poor was encouraged – though donations were only for people thought of as ‘the deserving poor’. Those considered rogues – shown drunk, thieving or simply dirty, in pamphlets put out by organisations concerned with the morals of the poor – need not apply for charity. It would be withheld (doubtless with a strong sense of self-justification)." - (National Gallery of Art, London)