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Beer In Art #68: Henry Singleton’s Ale-House Door


Today’s work of art was originally painted around 1790, when the English pub was a very different animal. It was created by Henry Singleton, a British artist who lived from 1766-1839. This painting, The Ale-House Door, is an oil on canvas painting roughly 10 x 12 inches, and the original can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It’s also sometimes known by the title At the Inn Door.

The pub looks like it was probably called The Bell, though I’m just guessing based on the sign. According to my handy Dictionary of Pub Names, the Bell is a fairly common pub name owing to the idea that a “bell speaks all languages.”

You can read more about Singleton at his Wikipedia page and there’s a biography of him from the Grove Dictionary of Art, too. You can see a few more of his works at the Tate and there are more links at ArtCyclopedia.

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