When Did You Last See Your Father By William Frederick Yeames. From The World's Greatest Paintings, Published By Odhams Press, London, 1934. Poster Print (20 x 10)

Product Information

Yeames was born in Taganrog, Russia, the son of a British consul based in Russia. After the death of his father in 1842, Yeames was sent to school in Dresden where he began studying painting. A reviewer for The Spectator admired the toil Yeames put into the work: "In the fourth gallery there is, first, a large picture by Yeames, A., of the historical kind – a good, industrious work, chiefly concerned with clothes and accessories – And when did you last see your father? A little Royalist boy being questioned by a Roundhead, much to his discomfiture, while his sister stands by waiting her turn, and soldiers and domestics fill up the rest of the picture" (730). I listen to his voice fading on the mobile phone, and remember my conversation with the consultant three days ago - 'Can he die at home?''I don't see why not: your mother's a doctor, and there's nothing more we can do for him in hospital' - and wonder if this is where we've got already. My mother’s fear of the chaos she’ll inherit is understandable, though I know she is really saying something else. She dreads the paperwork because paper will soon be all that remains of him.”

W. W. Fenn in The Magazine of Art felt this work led to Yeames's reputation rising even higher in the estimation of the cognoscenti: Damon Smith of the Manchester Evening News called the film "a bittersweet and, at times, moving account of the strained family ties which define each and every one of us." [ citation needed]But it's like the authorities fear for the corpse and won't let it out of their sight, as if it were going to get chopped up or boiled down or something.' Yeames was inspired to paint the picture to show the crises that could arise from the natural frankness of young children. Here, if the boy tells the truth he will endanger his father, but if he lies he will go against the ideal of honesty undoubtedly instilled in him by his parents. I miss knowing my father as a maturing adult, and I loved reading about Morrison's relationship with his father. It was tender, poignant and full of the kind of honesty that made me keep reading, kept me wanting to know and feel more. Sure, many tears fell as I read but there was humor and joy also.

Yeames favoured Tudor and Stuart subjects, and was fascinated by the events surrounding the death of Amy Robsart, the first wife of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. Amy Robsart (1870)

You might also like

They chat and dither, awkward about getting on with moving the body, perhaps expecting me not to be here. They ask whether I want little white drapes - see, like this, stapled against the side - to conceal his pyjamas: they know no one is likely to come and see him in the Chapel of Rest, but if anyone does we won't mind if the coffin is open, will we, and these drapes may be more discreet. They take the lid off to show me his resting place: there is nothing plush about it, no purple velvet, no fancy panelling or inlay, just some white-cotton-lined foam under the head, plain and cheap as he'd have wanted. The phone goes, and they look at me, thinking this will be their chance to get the body in unobserved, but I keep jabbering and let it ring until it stops. I've been waiting for this moment, I'm not going to let him out of my sight.

Bullying, blustery, and boorish, Arthur blunders his way through fatherhood, regularly calling his son a fathead and intruding into the boy's private moments with a sense of entitlement. He has a penchant for exaggeration when he is not telling outright lies, and publicly humiliates his long-suffering wife Kim with his shameless flirting with various women and an affair with Beaty, a friend of the family.He seems glad that another Royalist family has been discovered and probably believes that they deserve harsh punishment.

The undertaker's car pulls up outside the window, not a hearse but a Ford Escort estate. The coffin looks to be made of a sort of pale pine, like the bookshelves I've put up without him. Malcolm, the boss, and the middle-aged assistant wearing a carpenter's apron, have some difficulty manoeuvring the box down the hall and into the room: 'Gently does it.' Finally they put it down on the far side of the bed. The thinner end of the coffin, for the feet, is hard up against the wardrobe. No, Arthur. It's just the numbers waiting to get in. And surely there must be doctors on the circuit.'

1835–1918

The oil-on-canvas picture, painted in 1878, depicts a scene in an imaginary Royalist household during the English Civil War. The Parliamentarians have taken over the house and question the son about his Royalist father (the man lounging on a chair in the centre of the scene is identifiable as a Roundhead officer by his military attire and his orange sash [3]). THE FIRST day of life after his death. Friendly but not nosy, the registrar holds a fountain pen and asks me to sit down. She needs to know, for the purposes of the form, who, when, where and how: she needs to know whether I was present at the time. But she does not want to talk about the death more than is strictly necessary, and if she ever knew my father she isn't letting on. I give her his full name. The doctor's certificate says: Cause of death - Carcinoma 1(a). 'What does 1(a) mean?' I ask. In an article about what sells in Hollywood, an agent moans that she just can't read one more story about coping with aging, dying parents. The market was glutted with them. I couldn't help but think that this must be a very timely and heartfelt theme since it was popping up in so many scripts. Is it possible that there's an adult audience hungry for stories that help them deal with the hard issues in their lives?