Size 28" x 36 "
Format Oil on Canvas
Signature Lower Left
Frame Not known

History of the painting

Other observations

This is arguably the "most typical" of all of Harry Brooker's paintings, featuring five children gathered around a table with a green table cloth under which is a large earthenware jug and off to one side a half barrel and a straw boater..

Ruth is seated watching Edgar and Oswald (or is it Oswald and Edwin?) making a kite. Ruth is now 15, Edgar 18, Oswald 17 and Edwin 14. Charles (now aged 12) is seated on the floor with Elsie (now aged 3).

Another painting about kites was painted a few years later and can be seen as "Making a Kite 1902". A similar scene was painted much later on "The Young Aviators 1918",

Many of Harry's paintings were titled "The Young…" we have "Anglers", "Artists", "Aviators", "Carpenters", "Dressmakers", "Kitemakers" and "Shopkeepers". It is not clear, like all of Harry's paintings whether these were his names for the paintings or some auction house such as "Sotheby's" who were selling a lot of them chose a name to auction the painting with.

The chair on which one of the boys is seated was seen in "Afternoon Pastimes 1896" and the large earthenware jug, green table cloth, straw boater and half barrel are all seen in many other of Harry's paintings. There is a skipping rope also lying on the floor which also featured in "Blind Mans Buff 1898"

This painting (along with The Young Carpenters 1897) is one of my two personal favourites and it is perhaps the typical features of these two paintings that makes them both so.