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Supporting museums Art we've helped buy The First Piano Lesson
The First Piano Lesson The First Piano Lesson

The First Piano Lesson

Charles West Cope

Art Funded
2008
Dimensions
34 x 34.5 cm
Vendor
Sotheby's
In this painting motherhood is presented in idealised form – the mother and baby are pristine and sit at a piano, a marker of status within the domestic sphere and a key indication of middle-class standing.

The place of middle-class children within the home and attitudes of parents towards them is under-researched and a subject that the Geffrye hopes to open up with a major exhibition in the future. The painting modifies the stereotypical view that Victorian children were to be seen and not heard. Children have been under-represented in the Geffrye Museum’s collection of Victorian paintings.

Provenance

JS Maas & Co, London; Sir David Scott, 1986; Sotheby's, 2008.

Oil on canvas

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The Geffrye Museum of the Home

136 Kingsland Road, Hoxton, London, E2 8EA
020 7739 9893
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Opening times

The museum is now closed to undergo a major, transformational development project. It will reopen in spring 2020.

Throughout closure, the Geffrye's restored almshouse will remain open for tours and a full programme of events will be run in the front gardens.

Art we’ve helped buy at The Geffrye Museum of the Home

Sunday
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Wooden tea caddy and a glass sugar bowl
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Wing armchair
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View of the Garden at 17 Grove End Road
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Two Louis XV corner cabinets
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Two Figures in a Garden
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The Young Woodcutters
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The Wedding Breakfast
 Acquired 2000
The Sleeping Soldier
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The First Public Drinking Fountain
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The First Place
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The First Piano Lesson
 Acquired 2008
The Disaster
 Acquired 1980
The Appointment
 Acquired 2003
Spinet
 Acquired 1939
Small Chest of Drawers
 Acquired 2012
Sideboard
 Acquired 1995
Set of stools
 Acquired 2006
Portrait of the Artist with her Husband, Charles and their Son
 Acquired 1978
Portrait of Miss Elizabeth Hemyng
 Acquired 1972
Portrait of John Monck
 Acquired 1980
Portrait of Florence, Arthur and Charles Moore
 Acquired 1977
Portrait of Bell and Dorothy Freeman
 Acquired 2015
Portrait of a Man with a Skull
 Acquired 1972
Portrait of a boy with the Perceval family coat of arms
 Acquired 1983
Pair of turkey-work chairs
 Acquired 2006
Pair of chairs
 Acquired 2006
Oranges and Lemons & Tug of War
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My Macbeth
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Modello 115 Chair
 Acquired 1995
Londonners Gipsying
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Livery cupboard
 Acquired 1992
Ladderback chairs
 Acquired 2009
John Evelyn's Cabinet
 Acquired 1979
Interior with Musicians
 Acquired 2011
Group Portrait of the Brewster Family
 Acquired 2005
Group portrait of a family in an interior, possibly the Roubel family
 Acquired 2010
Gone
 Acquired 1985
G M Moser and his wife, Mary
 Acquired 1974
Figure representing Hope
 Acquired 1993
Figure representing Charity
 Acquired 1993
English delftware polychrome posset pot
 Acquired 2014
Drop-leaf table
 Acquired 2007
Dining Table
 Acquired 1995
Capstan salt
 Acquired 2005
Bray's Designs for Cottages and Villas
 Acquired 2011
A Young Woman Reading in an Attic Bedroom
 Acquired 1981
A quack doctor treating a patient
 Acquired 1979
A Mother with Two Children
 Acquired 1983
A Domestic Interior
 Acquired 2000
18th century Piano
 Acquired 1937

Image credit

1 . The First Piano Lesson

© The Geffrye Museum of the Home

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