David Cox Travellers near Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire Derbyshire, probably 1830s Watercolour with gum Arabic 26.5 x 36.5 cm Cox uses warm browns and reds to depict two men travelling through woodland towards Hardwick Hall, which can be seen in the distance. Hardwick, a celebrated Derbyshire country house built in the 1590s, was among Cox’s favourite … Read more
David Cox Farmer on Horseback Passing a Windmill England or Wales, probably 1810-50 Watercolour 28.3 x 40 cm Birds circle the calm skies as a farmer slowly rides his horse past a windmill. The low horizon and large sky is typical of Cox’s preoccupation with depicting changeable weather and atmosphere. He returned to the theme … Read more
David Cox Snowdon Gwynedd, 1853 Black chalk and watercolour, on Scotch paper 21 x 37.2 cm David Cox often travelled to Wales and frequently portrayed the mountains of North Wales throughout his career. This rapid watercolour sketch was most likely completed on the spot. Cox increasingly used ‘Scotch paper’, a type of wrapping paper, during his later years. … Read more
Adrian Ludwig Richter Genoveva Dresden, 1848 Etching 42 X 25 cm This tender portrayal of a mother and child is based on an 8th-century folk tale that was popularised during the 19th century. Condemned and abandoned by her husband, Genoveva and her child found sanctuary in the forest, where they are tended to by a … Read more
Carl Wilhelm Kolbe A Youth Playing the Lyre to a Maiden at a Fountain in Luxuriant Vegetation Dessau, 1803 Etching The wild and overgrown foliage of this scene is a distinctive feature of Kolbe’s extraordinary and original art. He termed such images ‘Kraüerblätter’, or ‘vegetable leaves’. The intricate detail of the enlarged shrubbery is accentuated … Read more
Édouard Manet Charles Baudelaire Paris, 1865 Etching Composed after a photograph by the French photographer Nadar, this etching captures the immediacy of the original photographic image. The short busy lines swirl across the paper to build up the likeness of the art critic and poet Charles Baudelaire. Nadar took a direct approach to his portraiture, … Read more
Honoré Daumier Embrassons Nous Paris, 1867 Lithograph 286 x 283 mm Daumier produced around 5,000 caricatures during his career, which spanned an intense period of political unrest in France. In 1867, in a bid to appear more liberal, Napoleon III lifted the censorship ban he had imposed 15 years earlier. This cartoon was published soon … Read more
Honoré Daumier Et pendant ce temps-là ils continuent à affirmer qu’elle ne s’est jamais mieux portée Paris, 1872 Lithograph 283 x 275 mm Daumier was a Republican, but there is no sense of triumph in this depiction of the Monarchy as a withered corpse in an open coffin. The Franco-Prussian War (1871-2) and resultant turmoil … Read more
Photographic Miniatures by Bettina von Zwehl An intriguing eye miniature in the collection of the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, was the starting point for this series of recent work by renowned contemporary photographer Bettina von Zwehl (b. 1971). While producing a series of works inspired by historic painted portrait miniatures in the V&A and Bath’s … Read more
Francisco de Goya Loyalty, Plate 17 from ‘The Proverbs’ Spain, about 1816 Etching with aquatint and drypoint 24.4 x 35.7 cm Goya’s final series of etchings, The Proverbs (Los Proverbios), also known as Disparetes or Absurdities, remain his most mysterious and enigmatic. Featuring a group of monks and friars, Loyalty appears to be concerned with … Read more
Edgar Degas Mademoiselle Malo Paris, the early 1870s Pastel on paper 52.2 X 41.1 cm Mademoiselle Malo has not been conclusively identified, but apparently she was a dancer at the Paris Opéra. Degas began to use pastel for portrait studies in the 1870s and this fine example is one of the earliest. Degas appreciated the … Read more
Edgar Degas Miss Lala at the Cirque Fernando France, 1879 Black chalk with touches of pastel 470 x 320 mm In 1879 Degas made this preparatory drawing of Miss LaLa, an acrobat of mixed European and African parentage. Renowned for her agility, she performed throughout Europe. This daring perspective shows LaLa suspended from the rafters … Read more
Samuel Palmer The Rising Moon London, about 1855, published 1857 Etching on chine collé 269 x 366 mm A shepherd and his flock return home at evening in a scene also known as ‘An English Pastoral’. Palmer assembles different landscape elements, imagined and observed. The solitary figure, the sheep, and the moon are familiar from … Read more
Joseph Mallord William Turner Ludlow Castle, from the North West, with the River Teme London, about 1800 Pencil, watercolour, scratching out on paper 35.7 x 57.2 cm Turner visited Ludlow in the summer of 1798 when he made a number of studies of the ruined castle and its surrounds. The pencil drawing of this scene … Read more