Measuring Heights

{{Short description|Painting by William Powell Frith}} {{Infobox artwork | image_file=Measuring Heights.png | image_upright=1.5 | title=Measuring Heights | artist=William Powell Frith | year=1842 | type=Oil on panel, genre painting | height_metric=22.8 | width_metric=30.5 | metric_unit=cm | imperial_unit=in | museum=Victoria and Albert Museum | city=London }}

'''''Measuring Heights''''' is an oil on panel genre painting by the British artist William Powell Frith, from 1842.<ref>Trotter p.158-59</ref><ref>Gordon p.122</ref>

==History and description== It depicts a scene from the 1766 novel ''The Vicar of Wakefield'' by Oliver Goldsmith. Mrs Primrose compares the respective heights of her daughter Olivia and Squire Thornhill.<ref>[https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O133340/measuring-heights-a-scene-from-oil-painting-frith-william-powell/#object-details Victoria and Albert Museum]</ref> Depictions of popular scenes from literature enjoyed great success during the early Victorian era. A few years later William Mulready had a major hit with ''Choosing the Wedding Gown'', inspired by the same novel.<ref>[https://chronicle250.com/1846 Chronicle250]</ref>

The picture was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1842 held at the National Gallery.<ref>Trotter p.viii</ref> The painting is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, having been acquired in 1882 as part of the Jones Bequest by the art collector John Jones.<ref>[https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/measuring-heights-31712 Art UK]</ref>

==References== {{reflist}}

==Bibliography== * Gordon, Catherine May. ''British Paintings of Subjects from the English Novel, 1740-1870''. Garland, 1988. * Green, Richard & Sellars, Jane. ''William Powell Frith: The People's Painter''. Bloomsbury, 2019. * Trotter, David. ''William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age''. Yale University Press, 2006 * Wood, Christopher. ''William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World''. Sutton Publishing, 2006.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Measuring Heights}} Category:Paintings by William Powell Frith Category:1842 paintings Category:Paintings in the Victoria and Albert Museum Category:Oil paintings on panel Category:Genre paintings Category:Paintings based on novels Category:Works based on The Vicar of Wakefield