Collections/Exhibitions/Views of Nature: Four Centuries of Watercolours from Winchester College, 2022-23/
British School (16th Century) [WCM 3233]
THE ANDWELL MAP, 1530S
Pen and ink and watercolour; extensively inscribed (H. 24, W. 63 cm). WCM 3233.
This picture of fields at Andwell, near Basingstoke, is one of the earliest known watercolour views of an English landscape. Documents [...]
Francis Place (1645-1728) [Aw493]
BY RICHMOND CASTLE, 1719
Pen and brown ink and washes over pencil; inscribed by the artist and dated lower centre: By Richmond Castle 1719 (H. 12 cm, W. 18 cm)
Francis Place was an amateur draughtsman, potter and printmaker, who spent most of his life in York. He was closely involved with the [...]
Paul Sandby, RA (1731-1809) [Aw260]
LLANBERIS FALLS NEAR DOLBADARN CASTLE, 1770s
Pen and black ink and watercolour with body colour; signed and inscribed in pen by the artist on the reverse: Cataract near Dolbladeon Castle Lanberis, Caernarvon, Paul Sandby, with pencil notes in the same hand and the artist’s monogram: P.S. (H. 50 cm, W. 34 cm)
Paul Sandby is traditionally regarded as the ‘father’ of English watercolour painting. Although he was not the first artist to [...]
Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) [Aw127]
WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH CHURCH, 1770s
Black and white chalk on grey/buff paper (H. 15cm, W. 20cm)
In a letter to his friend William Jackson, written at some point in the 1760s or early 1770s, Thomas Gainsborough wrote: ‘I’m sick of [...]
Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) [Aw313]
A ROCKY LANDSCAPE, 1773-1775
Watercolour and grey wash over pencil; inscribed by the artist on the reverse: a Small flat Rock covered wth. moss & trees/the whole of a Low tone of colouring it’s variegated/wth. dark Coloured moss deep purplish grey & blackish/Grey spots, the Light spots of a cold fleshy colour amongst/dark Grey are some beautiful spots of warm -/& reddish brown are some spots of white -/shapes scattered up & down there are also some few/Spots of light orange moss (H. 29 cm, W. 30 cm)
This rare landscape watercolour by Wright of Derby, who is best known for his portraits and landscapes in oil, dates from his trip to [...]
Francis Towne (1739-1816) [Aw496]
GOING TO VICOVARRO, 1781
Pencil, pen and grey ink, grey and blue washes; signed, inscribed and dated verso: Going to / Castello Madamo Vicavasso / No.5 / April 22d.1781 / Sun on the left hand setting behind the extreme distance / Francis Towne (H. 23cm, W. 32cm).
Towne’s works dating from his Grand Tour to Italy in 1780 to 1781 are considered among the greatest of eighteenth-century Romantic [...]
Paul Sandby, RA (1731-1809) [Aw263]
THE ENCAMPMENT IN HYDE PARK, 1781
Pen and black ink and watercolour; signed and dated lower right: P. Sandby 1781 (H. 21 cm, W. 30 cm)
This watercolour shows an Army encampment in Hyde Park in the summer of 1780, when anti-Catholic riots broke out in London. The origins [...]
John “Warwick” Smith (1749-1831) [Aw273]
FALLS OF TERNI NEAR ROME, 1784
Pen and ink and watercolour over pencil, signed and dated lower left: J. Smith 1784 (H. 43 cm, W. 31 cm)
John ‘Warwick’ Smith was one of the leading watercolourists of the late eighteenth century. He owes his pseudonym to the patronage of [...]
Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) [Aw250]
OUT HUNTING
Pen and brown ink and watercolour (H. 23cm, W. 35cm)
Fox hunting became a popular pastime in eighteenth-century England and was a favourite subject for Thomas Rowlandson, whose work often [...]
Samuel Howitt (1756-1822) [Aw156]
NETLEY ABBEY WITH CATTLE
Pen and ink and watercolour; signed on stone lower right: Howitt (H. 35cm, W. 55cm)
The ruins of Netley Abbey were a popular source of inspiration for artists and writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who [...]
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) after James Moore (1762-99) [Aw128]
PEMBROKE CASTLE, 1792–1793
Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil; signed at base: T. Girtin (H. 15 cm, W. 21 cm)
Trained as a draughtsman from a young age, Thomas Girtin was an apprentice to the topographical watercolourist Edward Dayes [...]
William Alexander (1767-1816) [Aw434]
WINCHESTER COLLEGE, CHAPEL TOWER AND FROMOND'S CHANTRY, c. 1800
Watercolour over pencil (H. 20 cm, W. 16 cm)
William Alexander is best known for his watercolours of China, an example of which is in the College’s collection (Aw2). He accompanied [...]
John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) [Aw90]
LAKE AND MOUNTAINS IN WALES, c. 1806
Grey-black washes over pencil (H. 27 cm, W. 36 cm)
The location of this view has not been identified, but the scenery is most reminiscent of North Wales, where Cotman toured in 1800 and [...]
John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) [Aw91]
RUINED DOORWAY AT MINTLYN, NORFOLK, c. 1810–1815
Watercolour over pencil; signed and numbered lower left: JS Cotman 1269 (H. 27 cm, W. 20 cm)
This watercolour is one of a large number of architectural studies made by Cotman in the 1810s. Many were drawn in preparation for [...]
John Varley (1778-1842) [Aw304]
MILLBANK, 1816
Watercolour; signed and dated lower centre right: J. Varley 1816 (H. 29 cm, W. 40 cm)
John Varley was a prolific watercolourist and an influential teacher, whose students included David Cox (see cat. no. 26) and Peter De [...]
John White Abbott (1763-1851), after Francis Towne (1739-1816) [Aw599]
VIEW OF ISOLA BELLA, LAGO MAGGIORE, c. 1816
Pen and ink wash; inscribed by the artist on the reverse: Lavano with Isola Bella on the left/ …can Islands. Morning light from the left [part of the inscription is cut off where it continued from another sheet] (H. 24 cm, W. 34 cm)
John White Abbott was an apothecary and surgeon from Exeter who was also a talented amateur artist. Most of his drawings are Devon [...]
Joseph Mallord William Turner, RA (1775-1851) [Aw298]
NEUWIED AND WEISSENTHURM ON THE RIVER RHINE, 1817
Body colour and watercolour with scratching out, on white paper prepared with a grey wash (H. 19cm, W. 30cm)
Turner based the composition of this scene on a rapid drawing from his Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook (pp. 78a and 79), made on a [...]
Richard Parkes Bonington (1801-1828) [Aw30]
LANDSCAPE WITH SHEEP GRAZING, c.1824
Watercolour (H. 13.5 cm, W. 16 cm)
Bonington was born in Nottingham but his father moved the family to Calais in 1817 to set up a lace-making business. There he took [...]
Peter de Wint (1784-1849) [Aw311]
RANDALL'S MILL, NINE ELMS, LONDON
Watercolour (H. 21 cm, W. 32 cm)
Situated between Battersea and Lambeth in south-west London, the Nine Elms area was described in 1838 as ‘a low swampy district [...]
Thomas Shotter Boys (1803-1874) [Aw36]
TWO GIRLS, 1830
Watercolour; signed and dated lower left: T. Boys 1830 (H. 14 cm, W. 10 cm)
Thomas Shotter Boys was born in London and apprenticed to the engraver George Cooke. In the 1820s he moved to Paris, where he became [...]
William Callow, RWS (1812-1908) [Aw60]
ON THE RIVER SEINE, 1830s
Watercolour (H. 18 cm, W. 24 cm)
Callow is unlikely ever to have met Richard Parkes Bonington (see cat. no. 18) but his influence is evident in the present watercolour [...]
James Holland (1800-1870) [Aw147]
GRACA CONVENT, LISBON
Watercolour heightened with white over pencil; signed with monogram and dated lower right: JH Lisbon June 26th 1837; inscribed on base of pilaster: GRAÇA CONVENT; inscribed lower left: 4 o’Clk. AM (H. 28 cm, W. 41 cm)
When Holland arrived in Portugal in the summer of 1837, he was probably the first British landscape artist to visit the country. His [...]
Richard Baigent (1799-1881) [Aw489]
OLD COMMONERS' COURT, SOUTH EAST VIEW, 1838
Watercolour over pencil (H. 18 cm, W. 25 cm)
Richard Baigent was the first Drawing Master for Winchester College and was in post from 1824 to 1874. He was born in Portsmouth in [...]
Charles Bentley (1805-1854) [Aw27]
SHIPPING OFF THE COAST WITH HARBOUR TOWN, 1830s-1840s
Watercolour over pencil, heightened with white; signed lower right: C. Bentley (H. 32 cm, W. 46 cm)
Charles Bentley specialised in marine scenes, of which this is a typical example. A reviewer in The Athenaeum noted in 1846 that ‘he [...]
Richard Dadd (1817-1886) [Aw108]
PORTRAIT STUDIES OF FIGURES IN EASTERN COSTUME, 1842-1843
Pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with gum arabic (H. 17 cm, W. 25 cm)
Richard Dadd was one of the most original artists of the nineteenth century, best known for his depiction of fairy and supernatural [...]
David Cox (1783-1859) [Aw98]
THE ORCHARD, c. 1850
Watercolour over black chalk (H. 42 cm, W. 54 cm)
This picture is one of the most dramatic and technically accomplished watercolours in Winchester’s collection. It was painted towards [...]
Edward Lear (1813-1888) [Aw179]
THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE, 1865
Pen and brown ink and watercolour heightened with white; inscribed and dated by the artist lower left: Venice Nov/13 9-10 AM 1865 (from the Gondola. x/16); further inscribed below with other notes (some illegible) in ink and pencil (H. 31 cm, W. 50 cm)
This watercolour dates from Lear’s second visit to Venice, in November 1865. The city had been a disappointment to him in 1857, but he [...]
Albert Goodwin, RWS (1845-1932) [Aw413]
ST. CATHERINE'S HILL AND ST. CROSS, WINCHESTER, 1874
Watercolour and body colour over pencil; signed and dated lower right: A. Goodwin/74 (H. 22 cm, W. 32 cm)
From an early age, Arthur Goodwin was closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. As a young boy he lived in Maidstone in [...]
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (1821-1906) [Aw48]
VIEW OF THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE
Watercolour and body colour over black crayon on grey paper; signed lower right with initials: HBB (H. 24 cm, W. 32 cm)
After completing a degree in mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1844, Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (born Sharpe) left England [...]
Sir George Clausen, RA, RWS (1852-1944) [Aw73]
WOODCUTTERS, 1899
Watercolour and body colour over pencil; signed and dated lower right: G. Clausen 1899 (H. 24 cm, W. 29 cm)
Two woodcutters bind lengths of wood into faggots. It is autumn, or early winter – times in the countryside calendar when hedges were [...]
Augustus Edwin John, RA (1878-1961) [Aw177]
FISHERGIRL OF EQUIHEN, 1907
Pencil on grey paper; signed lower right: John (H. 30 cm, W. 25 cm)
With deft strokes, Augustus John has captured the fire and beauty of an anonymous Breton fisher-girl. She turns away from her from us, [...]
Philip Wilson Steer (1860-1942) [Aw281]
LANDSCAPE NEAR POOLE, 1916
Watercolour; signed and dated lower right: P.W. Steer 1916 (H.26 cm, W. 34 cm)
Philip Wilson Steer was born in Birkenhead on 28 December 1860, the youngest child of the painter Philip Steer (1810–1871). He was [...]
Henry Tonks (1862-1937) [Aw295]
RUINED INTERIOR, ARRAS, 1918
Watercolour over pencil; signed, inscribed and dated lower right: Henry Tonks / Arras France 1918 (H. 24 cm, W. 48 cm)
A woman stands in a room. Around her a scene of devastation: broken chairs; windows without glass; bricks without plaster; a ceiling [...]
Sir Alfred James Munnings, PRA (1878-1959) [Aw209]
THE WATERFALL, BAGWORTHY WATER, EXMOOR, c. 1940
Watercolour and body colour; signed lower right: A.J. Munnings (H. 28 cm, W. 39 cm)
At the outbreak of the Second World War it was feared that the coast of East Anglia might be invaded, and many large houses there were [...]
Stanley Roy Badmin, RWS (1906-1989) [Aw21]
BUTLEY PRIORY, SUFFOLK, 1947
Watercolour on paper, signed and dated lower right: S.R. Badmin 1947 Butley Priory Woodbridge Done for Dr Rendall. 1947; with further notes in the artist’s hand below (H. 37 cm, W. 29 cm)
Butley Priory in Suffolk was the home of Montague Rendall, Headmaster of Winchester from 1911 to 1924. He was a great supporter of the [...]