Explorations in the footsteps of Turner, Cotman, Ruskin and others with Professor David Hill
Watercolour on paper, 101 x 152 mm Untraced Turner Catalogues: Wilton 1090; tdb1210 Photograph by David Hill This is a small, highly-finished watercolour showing a lake and mountain. A string of cattle stands in the water in the foreground and the bank recedes at the right to the distant mountain. The watercolour is currently untraced … Continue reading Skiddaw from the southern end of Derwentwater, c.1832
Watercolour vignette on paper, 280 x 215 mm Private Collection Turner Catalogues: Wilton 1091; tdb1211 Image courtesy of Bonham's This is a small, highly-finished watercolour vignette showing a tree-circled clearing with, in the centre, a monolith with a tree apparently growing from it. In the distance left is the misty silhouette of a castle on … Continue reading Mayburgh, with Penrith Castle and Beacon [sometimes Mayborough or King Arthur’s Round Table], c.1832
Watercolour vignette on paper, 87 x 152 mm Private Collection Turner Catalogues: Wilton 1092; tdb1212 Image courtesy of Christie's This is a small, highly-finished watercolour showing an extensive landscape with a castle on a sunlit eminence centre left, overlooking a broad river and many-arched bridge to the right. A town with a tower and spire … Continue reading Berwick upon Tweed, c.1832
Watercolour vignette on paper, 115 x 147 mm Abbotsford, The Home of Sir Walter Scott Turner Catalogues: Wilton 1093; tdb1213 Image courtesy of the Art Fund This is a small, highly-finished watercolour vignette showing an extensive baronial house overlooking a river and backed by rounded hills. The time of day is evening and a crescent … Continue reading Abbotsford, c.1832
Between c.1793 and c.1794 Turner made fifteen watercolours for engraving in 'The Copper-Plate Magazine' published in parts by Harrison & Co of Paternoster Row, London in partnership with the engraver John Walker. Each part consisted of two copper-plate engravings, together with a page of descriptive and historical text. The first part of the project was … Continue reading Introduction: The Copper-Plate Magazine
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 216 x 281 mm, 8 1/2 x 11 ins Inscribed: Lower right, in a distinctive script, 'Turner'. USA, Massachusetts, Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute Turner catalogues: Wilton no.87; tdb237 This is a medium-sized studio watercolour depicting two single-masted seagoing cabin vessels moored in the centre foreground, near some trees … Continue reading Rochester, seen across the River Medway, c.1793
Coronavirus restrictions have forced many of us to find imaginative room in small things, but last week I received a pleasant reminder of previous excursions to sublimity on the grand scale. The British Art specialists Lowell Libson and Jonny Harker sent me a link to their new online exhibition ‘Good Prospects’. The selection includes a … Continue reading Aiguilles of Mont Blanc: A rediscovered watercolour by John Ruskin
I admitted in my original article on David Lucas’s progress proofs for Constable's 'A Summerland' that my attempt to record all of the impressions for this composition was doomed to amendment. I hardly suspected that it would require amending quite so frequently. Here is yet another proof; the third to appear this year. I haven’t … Continue reading Update: Another Constable ‘Summerland’ proof!
This article extends the consideration of two proofs of the print by David Lucas and John Constable of the artist's composition of 'A Summerland' sold at Chiswick auctions on 27 June 2019, together with a further proof from the series of 'English Landscape Scenery' of 'Willy Lott's Cottage'. To start with the first new ‘Summerland’ proof. … Continue reading Further Constable ‘Summerland’ proofs #2
On 27 June 2019, lot 372 Chiswick Auctions, London offered a progress proof of David Lucas’s mezzotint of Constable’s ‘A Summerland’. The catalogue identified this as proof state 10e as given in Andrew Shirley's superb book Mezzotints by David Lucas after John Constable, published in 1930.. This turns out to be wrong. It is, rather, … Continue reading Update: Further Constable ‘Summerland’ proofs
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