This is a painting by David Wilkie called The Wardrobe Ransacked, painted in 1810. In it we have a supposedly drunk man apparently raiding his daughter’s wardrobe while she looks horrified and the dog does what dogs do
As u have probs guessed dear reader things are not so cut and dry so hold onto ur bonnets while we take a ride through the life of David Wilkie and why this image deserves a Wynonna Ryder-style renaissance
Biography
So info for the inevitable biopic (starring Timothy Spall cuz he just plays painters really well) - Daivid Wilkie was a Scottish artist born in 1785 to a parish minister and his wife. Wilkie eventually grew up and decided to become a painter, mostly painting whats called ‘genre paintings’ or ‘anecdotal paintings’ which seems like a really classist way to say depicting ordinary ppl doing ordinary shit but hey Wilkie also was guilty of painting poverty porn and fetishising working poor ppl so 🤷♀️
Wilkie became quite a renowned painter in Scotland and eventually moved to London in 1805 to seek fame and fortune like some sort of scots dick whittington sans panto cat and fairy godmother
Wilkie joined the Royal Academy in 1809 as an associate member but wasn’t old enough for full membership and had to wait a few years to become a Royal Academian
In 1810 Wilkie suffered one of a couple of mental breaks which meant withdrawing from Society until recovered
Eventually Wilkie was promoted royal painter and was expected to paint portraits for nobility which turned out to be soul sucking and Wilkie turned out to be less talented at that than the everyday scenes people were used to seeing from Wilkie
Eventually Wilkie got bored of this and buggered off abroad travelling around arty hotspots and churches (for the frescos)
David Wilkie died at sea off the coast of Gibraltar in 1840.
My case, ur honour
Lets have a butchers at the painting itself n talk about why it was so important for the tgirls of the Georgian-Victorian crossover episode.
As mentioned before the painting from 1810 was apparently painted for Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstaville but for some reasons Basset seems to not have wanted it. This maybe down to its unofficial rejection from The Royal Academy’s Big Summer Blow Out where Wilkie was advised to withdraw it by the panel - this was apparently cuz it wasn’t as strong a painting as it could have been, especially when placed next to Edward Bird’s paintings such as Good News which was shown next to Wilkie’s work the year before.
The other reason was cuz it was supposedly a drunk man crossdressin and that was offensive, even though Wilkie had done the Georgian equivalent of going viral on tiktok when showing The Village Holiday, which was all about drinking!
As for the charge of transvestism ur honour i would like to present a work of Wilkie’s which is The Blind Fiddler:
This seemingly ordinary painting holds an exciting cameo of the painter wearing a dress! While this might not register as much to us, it would definitely have been noticed by the audience of the time and it drew in the crowds to the point where u could barely move around the room. Its one of Wilkie’s more popular paintings to the point where it was the first painting by a living painter to be shown in & bought by the National Gallery!
So, ladies and gentlethems of the jury, girls, gays and theys who slay of the audience, I don’t see how the reasoning of it not being a popular theme or the painting itself not being strong could be good enough reason for it not to be displayed in the summer exhibition.
It seems like the only people who didn’t like the theme or painting itself were the people on the panel of the academy.
Not being displayed in the Royal Academy's summer exhibition would have been a huge blow cuz tens of thousands of ppl went every year including the taste-makers of the time. This, as mentioned already, led to Wilkie have a nervous breakdown and retreating from Society until recovered.
Not So Drunk History
So why is this not showing some drunken act of crossdressin played for laughs?
Well…because its likely that Wilkie was a trans woman. The fact the the painter is in a dress in an earlier painting and then suffers from a “nervous illness” after this painting is rejected by peers, and also Wilkie was delighted to be caught wearing a dress once while painting at the studio. Wilkie was also one of those ‘confirmed bachelor’ types who never married, with one woman saying that Wilkie was “totally devoid of gallantry” when it came to dating women.
Wilkie also never had any kids. Wilkie’s sister Helen and mother came to live in London after the death of Wilkie’s father meaning that the financial responsibility for both of them fell to Wilkie as well as that of a deceased brother’s children, who were well looked after and educated at Wilkie’s expense.
Given Wilkie was approaching crossdressing at least a couple of times in paintings we can add that to the personal accounts and get the idea, why else would the painter want to broach that as a subject only to have a Menty B when told its a no by ur peers? Obvs we can’t know for sure cuz Wilkie is dead and didn’t have access to that kinda language in the 1800s, but we can make an educated guess based on the clues
By the time Wilkie mounts a solo exhibition in 1812 (quite a comeback after having a breakdown!), The Wardrobe Ransacked is ready to make its first public appearance and does so pretty good reviews from a ‘conservative’ newspaper as well as The Examiner in May 1812 where it is described as “an unsurpassed specimen of flesh colour, of deep and harmonious grey tone and of vivacious action”.
So the painting was pretty well received by the taste-making class of the day and was very popular with young ladies, who would have had their activities at the time limited to including visiting exhibitions. They made the painting so popular that the painting was referenced in an ad for a makeup powder as a way to drive up their sales. Practically a cover girl!
Its All Connected
We know that Wilkie was in London from 1805 onwards and would likely have known about the Molly Houses (most artists seemed to know, whether they frequented them or not). Now just cuz someone is in London at the height of the Molly Houses doesn’t mean they went, but knowing that Wilkie was a confirmed bachelor type, i would say that it is a pretty good possibility.
Wilkie, being at the Royal Academy, would also have come into contact with artists who would have painted Chevaliere D’Eon, who died that same year that The Wardrobe Ransacked was painted, so on top of the influence of The Old Masters™ there would have been those paintings of D’Eon by Angelica Kauffman and Sir Joshua Reynolds as well as others to boot.
