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Wearing a smock frock to disguise his uniform, a deserter from the army panics as a boy warns him of the arrival of soldiers sent to arrest him. The gesturing figures of his relatives indicate the calamitous effects on the family of the deserter’s reluctance to do his duty. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1847, a reviewer for the Spectator thought the picture “should be hung up in every barrack: the worn and despairing aspect of the disguised man, who is told that the soldiers are coming, is enough to strike a chill into the heart of the hardiest rebel against military discipline.” As an ironic touch, a poster on the wall appeals for FINE YOUNG MEN to serve in the infantry in India. Richard Redgrave, however, may have been more sympathetic to the young man’s desire to return home than the reviewers. He once stated that his work was about “calling attention to the trials and struggles of the poor and oppressed.”

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016