Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/427

 for which he deserted another work already begun.

Mason's fascinating personality procured him the friendship of all the painters and architects who visited Rome, and when Sir F. Leighton made the city his winter head-quarters, he and Mason became fast friends. Cavaliere Costa was for many years Mason's constant companion in Italy. Costa, who in the early days of their intimacy thought Mason's execution childish, recognised from the first the beauty of the sentiment which characterised all his work. They adopted together a system, which they christened ‘the Etruscan,’ of preparing their pictures in monochrome before laying on their final colours. Mason visited the Paris exhibition in 1855, and although he greatly admired the work of Decamps and Hébert, his confidence that he could excel most contemporary painters was confirmed. In 1857 he is said to have made an income of six hundred guineas. In 1858 he returned to England, married, and settled with his wife in one corner of the old family mansion, Wetley Abbey, which is situated in the midst of a park, five miles from the Potteries.

The exchange of the blue skies of Italy for the grey and misty atmosphere of England at first depressed Mason. His friend Sir Frederick Leighton stimulated him, however, to exertion, and Mason's first picture painted in England, ‘Wind on the Wolds,’ is in Sir F. Leighton's possession. Thenceforward he found inspiration in the exquisite though subdued colours of the Staffordshire country; and there followed from his brush a series of idylls which stamp him as the greatest of the idyllic painters of England.

In 1863 Costa visited him at Wetley while Mason was painting ‘The End of the Day,’ now at Windsor, and ‘Wetley Rocks,’ now belonging to the writer of this article. Afterwards they visited Paris together, and in 1864 Mason shifted his quarters to Westbourne House, Shaftesbury Road, Hammersmith, so as to enjoy the society of his brother artists, but he still passed much of his time at Wetley. At Shaftesbury Road he painted ‘The Gander,’ ‘The Geese,’ ‘The Cast Shoe,’ ‘Yarrow,’ ‘The Young Anglers,’ ‘The Unwilling Playmate,’ and ‘The Evening Hymn.’ A fastidiousness, which increased with his years, was always characteristic of him. He altered the composition of ‘The Evening Hymn’ after it was finished, and the exhibition of it was thus delayed for a year. ‘The Blackberry Gatherers’ was twice repainted; first it was winter, with a hag gathering enchanted herbs, and a fiery-eyed raven on a bare branch overhead; and then he painted it as summer, before completing it as it now stands. A little landscape in Staffordshire was begun as an effect of early spring, then altered to summer, and eventually finished as a late autumn effect, when only the last few leaves were clinging to the trees.

In 1869 he was elected A.R.A., and removed to 7 Theresa Terrace, Hammersmith, where he painted ‘Only a Shower,’ ‘Girls Dancing,’ ‘Blackberry Gathering,’ ‘The Milk Maid,’ and the ‘Harvest Moon.’ During his last years his health grew feeble, and visits to Lord Leconfield at Petworth House, or to a country house placed at his disposal by the Duke of Westminster, failed to restore it. He died of angina pectoris, on 22 Oct. 1872, at his house, 7 Theresa Terrace, aged 54, just after completing his largest, and in some respects his finest, picture, ‘The Harvest Moon.’ He was buried on 28 Oct. at Brompton cemetery.

Mason married at the parish church of Birkenhead, Cheshire, on 5 Aug. 1858, Mary Emma Wood, a daughter of Edward Gittens Wood of Bayston House, Shropshire, by whom he had two sons and five daughters. Five of his children survived him.

His three largest English compositions were: ‘The Evening Hymn,’ ‘Girls Dancing,’ and ‘The Harvest Moon;’ in the last, the scythes cutting against the sky form a magnificent composition; but it is doubtful if any exceed in poetic sentiment ‘Yarrow,’ ‘The Cast Shoe’ (now in the National Gallery), ‘Home from Milking,’ ‘The Young Anglers,’ and ‘A Landscape, Derbyshire.’

The following pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy: ‘Ploughing in the Campagna,’ 1857; ‘In the Salt Marshes,’ ‘Campagna di Roma,’ 1859; ‘Landscape,’ 1861; ‘Mist on the Moors,’ 1862; ‘Catch,’ 1863; ‘Returning from Ploughing,’ 1864; ‘The Gander,’ ‘The Geese,’ and ‘The Cast Shoe,’ in 1865; ‘Yarrow,’ ‘Landscape, North Staffordshire,’ and ‘The Young Anglers,’ in 1866; ‘Evening, Matlock,’ and ‘The Unwilling Playmate,’ 1867; ‘The Evening Hymn’ and ‘Netley [a misprint for ‘Wetley’] Moor,’ 1868; ‘Only a Shower,’ ‘Three Studies from Nature,’ and ‘Girls Dancing,’ in 1869; ‘Landscape, Derbyshire,’ 1870; ‘Blackberry Gathering’ and ‘The Milk Maid,’ 1871; ‘The Harvest Moon,’ 1872.

At the Dudley Gallery: ‘Sketch from Nature, Angmering, Sussex;’ ‘The Clothes Line;’ ‘Landscape, Staffordshire, near Southport;’—‘Crossing the Moor’ was in an exhibition held at the Cosmopolitan Club. In 1873 an exhibition of his works was held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club; here were many of his most charming pictures and