Description
When do studies date the painting back to?
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)
History painting Wall painting in Turkey Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match Department of English, University of Vienna The Potato Eaters
History_painting-The_terms Wall_painting_in_Turkey-Abstract Colonel_Mordaunt's_Cock_Match-Versions Department_of_English,_University_of_Vienna-English_Studies_Library The_Potato_Eaters-Composition
History Painting and historical painting. The terms. Initially, "history painting" and "historical painting" were used interchangeably in English, as when Sir Joshua Reynolds in his fourth "Discourse" uses both indiscriminately to cover "history painting", while saying "...it ought to be called poetical, as in reality it is", reflecting the French term "peinture historique", one equivalent of "history painting". The terms began to separate in the 19th century, with "historical painting" becoming a sub-group of "history painting" restricted to subjects taken from history in its normal sense. In 1853 John Ruskin asked his audience: "What do you at present "mean" by historical painting? Now-a-days it means the endeavour, by the power of imagination, to portray some historical event of past days." So for example Harold Wethey's three-volume catalogue of the paintings of Titian (Phaidon, 1969–75) is divided between "Religious Paintings", "Portraits", and "Mythological and Historical Paintings", though both volumes I and III cover what is included in the term "History Paintings". This distinction is useful but is by no means generally observed, and the terms are still often used in a confusing manner. Because of the potential for confusion modern academic writing tends to avoid the phrase "historical painting", talking instead of "historical subject matter" in history painting, but where the phrase is still used in contemporary scholarship it will normally mean the painting of subjects from history, very often in the 19th century. "Historical painting" may also be used, especially in discussion of painting techniques in conservation studies, to mean "old", as opposed to modern or recent painting. In 19th-century British writing on art the terms "subject painting" or "anecdotic" painting were often used for works in a line of development going back to William Hogarth of monoscenic depictions of crucial moments in an implied narrative with unidentified characters, such as William Holman Hunt's 1853 painting "The Awakening Conscience" or Augustus Egg's "Past and Present", a set of three paintings, updating sets by Hogarth such as "Marriage à-la-mode". 
Wall Painting in Turkey (Anatolia) often reflect influences from the eastern and western styles and subject matters that date back to the Neolithic Age as the region has been the crossroad between Europe and the Middle East. 
There are at least two different versions of the painting of the cock match. The two attributed to Zoffany are the Daylesford version (above) and the Ashwick version. Both are clearly the same composition but the Daylesford version contains many more background figures and subtle variations. Different people are included and they are arranged in subtly different ways. The Daylesford painting was sent back to England when it was complete. There is a story that the painting was lost at sea and recreated later by Zoffany but that is not now thought to be true. However there are other studies of the same subject. About 1790 a key was published which identifies many people in the painting. There is an engraving by Richard Earlom which is of the Daylesford version. Less well known is a painting from the Indian court which seems to show the same subject matter. 
The English Studies Library is a sublibrary of the University of Vienna library. Its origins date back to the year 1877 when Jakob Schipper made a one time donation of 400 Gulden and an annual stipend of 150 Gulden to buy a book collection for the English Seminary at Vienna University. In 1974, the American Studies section of the library is added. The year 1997 saw the move of the library to its current location. 
During March and the beginning of April 1885 he sketched studies for the painting, and corresponded with his brother Theo, who was not impressed with his current work or the sketches Van Gogh sent him in Paris. He worked on the painting from April 13 until the beginning of May, when it was mostly done except for minor changes which he made with a small brush later the same year. Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work: "You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why." Writing to his sister Willemina two years later in Paris, Van Gogh still considered "The Potato Eaters" his most successful painting: "What I think about my own work is that the painting of the peasants eating potatoes that I did in Nuenen is after all the best thing I did". However, the work was criticized by his friend Anthon van Rappard soon after it was painted. This was a blow to van Gogh's confidence as an emerging artist, and he wrote back to his friend, "you...had no right to condemn my work in the way you did" (July 1885), and later, "I am always doing "what I can't do yet" in order to learn how to do it." (August 1885). 