The ruins of Netley Abbey were a popular source of inspiration for artists and writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who praised their beauty and used them as a setting for Gothic tales. Built in the thirteenth century, Netley is the most complete surviving Cistercian abbey in the south of England. Following its suppression during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the sixteenth century, a powerful Tudor politician, William Paulet, converted the abbey into a country house. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it came into the hands of a new owner, Sir Berkeley Lucy, who demolished parts of the building in order to sell its materials. The abbey rapidly fell into ruin. In this state, it became the subject of George Keate’s The Ruins of Netley Abbey, A poem (1764), as well as paintings and drawings by Francis Towne, JMW Turner, and John Constable.

It was during this period of Romantic appreciation of the ruins that Samuel Howitt came to paint the abbey. He visited Netley in 1791, during a tour of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight with his fellow artist and brother-in-law, Thomas Rowlandson (see cat. no. 9). An album of sketches made during the tour was purchased by the Isle of Wight Council in 2002. It contains watercolours of the abbey by both artists, including one by Rowlandson from exactly the same viewpoint as the present work.

Howitt is best known for his paintings and etchings of sporting and natural history, and he specialised particularly in drawing animals. Here, the cattle grazing on the overgrown vegetation emphasise the abbey’s ruin, which has become so dilapidated as to become part of the natural landscape.

Exhibited: On loan to the Ulster Museum, 1980–1993.

Provenance: Colnaghi, London; Major-General Sir John D’Arcy Anderson and Lady Elizabeth Anderson; gift of Lady Anderson, 1993.