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 close friends with Richard Parkes Bonington (see cat. no. 18) and later William Callow (see cat. no. 21). Boys produced hundreds of views of European towns and cities, many of them for exhibition in London. His major achievement was a series of chromolithographs published in 1839 and entitled Picturesque Architecture in Paris, Ghent, Antwerp, Rouen etc.
This watercolour may have been painted in Belgium, where Boys travelled in 1830, the year of the revolution which led its establishment as an independent kingdom. The colouring and composition show the influence of Bonington, but the liveliness and realism of the figures owes more to the example of Samuel Prout, another artist who specialised in Continental scenery. Two young peasant women are shown conversing. The figure on the right is holding a winnowing basket, used to toss wheat into the air to separate grain from chaff. This indicates that the scene is set in late summer, an impression reinforced by the bright sunlight that falls on the face of the woman on the left and casts dark shadows on the wall.
Exhibited: Sotheby’s, London, Watercolours from Winchester College, 1988, no. 7
Provenance: Bequest of Colonel Arthur Brooke, 1954