Measuring Heights is an oil on panel genre painting by the British artist William Powell Frith, from 1842.Bills & Knight p.158-59Gordon p.122
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.Victoria and Albert Museum 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.Chronicle250
The picture was displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1842 held at the National Gallery.Bills & Knight p.viii 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.Art UK
References
Bibliography Bills, Mark & Knight, Vivien (ed.) William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age. Yale University Press, 2006 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. Wood, Christopher. William Powell Frith: A Painter and His World. Sutton Publishing, 2006.