Bideston Farmhouse was painted at the turning point in Huggins’ career for not only was 1850 the year in which he was elected a full member of the Liverpool Academy, but that same year the London Pre-Raphaelites first exhibited in Liverpool. It was the influence of Sir John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown that encouraged William Huggins to paint in transparent glazes over a white ground. Bideston Farmhouse, an intimate study of a farmyard flooded with sunlight, is an early example of his use of glazes, leaning toward Pre-Raphaelites techniques whilst imbued with a traditional quality of observation reminiscent of John Sell Cotman. A leading member of the Liverpool School of painters, William Huggins began his career as a student in the life classes of the Liverpool Academy. Following in the footsteps of Liverpool’s son, George Stubbs, William Huggins’s great love was animal painting. Not only did he always keep a house full of pets, but he also spent many a day at the Zoological Gardens studying and drawing. On more than one occasion, he followed Wombwell’s Menagerie, the travelling animal circus, around England. However, his favourite subject matter of the late 1850s was the colourful plumage of domestic poultry.
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Academy Exhibition, September 1850, number 211