John Leech

British, b.1817, d.1864

The Picnic (Scattergood Family)

  • c. 1844
  • Pencil
  • Sir Leonard Woolley bequest, Oct 18, 1961. Presented by the National Art Collections Fund, London
  • 170 x 134mm
  • 69/519

Tags: bottles, families, hats, insects, monochrome, parasols, people (agents), picnic baskets, plates (dishes), recreation, sketches, trees, umbrellas, youth

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A picnic is interrupted by a practical joke featuring scuttling crabs. London illustrator and caricaturist John Leech was a regular contributor to Punch magazine and made this comical drawing not long after illustrating Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, published in 1843. The sketch became an illustration in Albert Smith’s ‘The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family’ in 1845.

(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)

A pencil sketch for the illustration that appeared opposite page 46 of volume two of 'The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family' by Albert Smith (1816-1860) published by Richard Bentley in 1845.

Exhibition History

Andreas Cellarius Hypothesis Ptolemaica Sive Communis Planetarum Motus Per Eccentricos Et Epicyclos Demonstrans [The Ptolemaic Hypothesis or Common Representation Demonstrating the Planetary Motions through Eccentrics and Epicycles] 1661. Hand-coloured engraving. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, William A. Sutton bequest, 2000
Out of Time
Russell Clark The Gathering 1957 (detail). Watercolour. Collection Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū
Paper Treasures
Image: uploads/2025_07/69_519.jpg
The illustration opposite page 46 of volume two of 'The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family' by Albert Smith (1816-1860) published by Richard Bentley in 1845.
The illustration opposite page 46 of volume two of 'The Fortunes of the Scattergood Family' by Albert Smith (1816-1860) published by Richard Bentley in 1845.