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Moonlit landscape, with a witch and young dragons

Maker

(artist)
1824-1883

Title

Date of Production

1876

Medium

traces of graphite, watercolour on wove paper, framed in brown wash (done before the drawing)

Dimensions

Height: 25.5 cm
Width: 45.7 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.3700

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Richard Doyle was one of the first artists to gain a reputation during the Victorian period as a painter and illustrator of fairy and fantasy subjects. In his later years he concentrated on producing watercolours for sale through London’s commercial galleries. In this example, a ghostly figure drives a flock of young dragons along the shore of a Scottish loch. The piercing white moon and Doyle’s favourite shades of blue are used to eerie effect. The composition is based on a wood-engraved illustration made after an earlier watercolour.

Notes

Doyle specialised in fairy and mythology scenes often containing dragons, witches or ghosts. This scene must be related to an illustration Doyle made (subsequently engraved by Joseph Swain) titled 'A Tailpiece', for H. Cholmondeley-Pennell's 'Puck on Pegasus (1861).

Provenance

Borwick Hall; contents of the estate sold by Procter + Birkbeck (estate agents, Lancashire); purchased there by Colnaghi (London), 15 October 1936; purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b, 9 March 1945 (£6); Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 17/02/2011-15/05/2011

Cartoonists of the British School, East Kent and Folkestone Arts Centre, Folkestone, UK, 16/03/1968-20/04/1968

Literature

Life, Legend, Landscape - Victorian Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, 2011
cat. no. 34
ill. on p. 127

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 17

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower right corner, brown ink, signed with artist's monogram and dated: "RD 1876".

Collector's mark: Verso: lower left corner, stamped in black ink: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

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