Robert Huskinson

He was christened Robert Locking Huskinson at Langar, Nottinghamshire, in either 1819 or 1820, sources differ, and no exact day or month of birth has been documented in any source located for this profile. His father, the portrait painter Henry Huskinson, appears to have provided his early art training within the family. In 1839, Robert moved to London with his brother Leonard, and the two changed the spelling of their surname to Huskisson, the form subsequently used in Royal Academy catalogues and in most market and reference sources.

His work began appearing at the Royal Academy in 1838, but his fairy subjects were not shown until 1847, when The Midsummer Night's Fairies and Come unto these yellow sands, a scene drawn from The Tempest, were both exhibited. His last recorded Royal Academy appearance came in 1854 with Titania's Elves Robbing the Squirrel's Nest, a work described at length in the Art Journal that year. According to Sotheby's cataloguing, he became increasingly obscure after 1854, possibly owing to ill health, though this is not independently confirmed by other sources. He died in London on 6 October 1861. No obituary appeared in the Art Journal, an absence that period sources note as unusual for an artist of his Royal Academy standing.

Contemporary and later critical opinion on Huskisson is mixed, and as much personal as aesthetic. The painter and memoirist William Powell Frith recalled meeting him at a dinner given by Lord Northwick and, while acknowledging "considerable merit" in his work, described him as "a very common man, entirely uneducated. I doubt he could read or write." A contemporary review in the Art Journal of 1854 is described by Sotheby's cataloguing as having taken a warmer view of Titania's Elves Robbing the Squirrel's Nest, though the review's exact wording could not be independently verified for this profile. The art historian Christopher Wood, a specialist in Victorian fairy painting, is cited in a secondary summary as praising his lyrical and technical ability among Victorian fairy painters, an assessment that could not be independently verified from a primary Wood publication for this profile.

Robert Huskisson's public auction history is thin, and none of the major art market publications consulted for this profile report an all time price record under either spelling of his name. The one specific, sourced sale identified is a preparatory oil for Come unto these yellow sands, sold at Olympia Auctions in London as lot 216 for GBP 800; the exact sale date could not be confirmed. A biographical summary from Engole notes that only a handful of his works are known to survive into the twenty first century, which helps explain the scarcity of public sale data. Collectors should treat any claimed record price for this artist with caution until it can be traced to a dated, sourced auction result.

Name and spelling matter more than usual with this artist. He was born and christened Robert Locking Huskinson, worked and exhibited under Robert Huskisson, and reference and auction sources use both Huskisson and Huskinson, so buyers should search and cross-check both spellings. No catalogue raisonne exists, and no current gallery or estate representation could be confirmed, so attribution and condition should be checked directly against Royal Academy exhibition records and the small number of dated, illustrated works in public reference sources such as Art UK and Sotheby's cataloguing. Public price data is extremely limited, with only one specific, sourced sale identified in this research, a GBP 800 lot at Olympia Auctions, so collectors should not assume a reliable price trend exists for this artist and should independently verify any secondary market claim about his auction record.