A woman school teacher sits at a table with a book in her hand and a basket of needlework on the floor. Engraving by Charles Heath, 1844, after Richard Redgrave, 1843.

Previous title, replaced May 2023 : A woman school teacher sits at a table with a book in her hand and a basket of teaching aids on the floor. Engraving by Charles Heath, 1844, after Richard Redgrave.

London : Peter Jackson, [1844]

1 print : engraving ; image 10.9 x 13.9 cm

The teacher. Richd. Redgrave R.A. Charles Heath.

Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: a complete dictionary of contributors, London: H. Graves, 1905-1906, vol. VI, p. 248

John Heath, The Heath family engravers 1779-1878, Aldershot 1993, vol. 2, pp. 274-275 (as after a painting called "The governess")

Lindsay Errington, Social and religious themes in English art 1840-1860, London: Garland Publishing, 1984, pp. 90-98

Wellcome Collection 28959i

After a painting painted in 1843, exhibited by Redgrave at the Royal Academy in 1843 (no. 553) as 'The poor teacher', acquired by J.A.D. Shipley, and bequeathed by him to the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, in 1909. A later, different and more cheerful version, with three girls in the background, was painted by Redgrave in 1844 and subsequently passed to the Victoria and Albert Museum: it is called "The governess" on the museum's website (2023) and has "The governess" painted on the inner slip of the frame. It had previously been called by the museum "The poor teacher", and the slip of the frame was inscribed "The school teacher". The Victoria and Albert version may be the painting exhibited by Redgrave at the Royal Academy in 1845 (no. 11) as 'The governess. "She sees no kind domestic visage here"' (Graves, loc. cit.)