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Fishing Boats moored in an Estuary

Maker

(artist)
1802-1828

Title

Date of Production

(circa) 1825

Medium

graphite, watercolour and bodycolour, with scratching out, on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 17.5 cm
Width: 24 cm

Accession Number

D.2007.DS.4

Mode of Acquisition

Dorothy Scharf, bequest, 2007 (March)

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Richard Parkes Bonington began studying watercolour when he moved to France in 1817. The following year he befriended the painter Eugène Delacroix. Delacroix later praised Bonington’s ‘lightness of touch which, especially in watercolours, makes his works a type of diamond which flatters and ravishes the eye’. The brushwork in this scene of fishing boats is extraordinarily lively, while the white paper showing through the crisp surface colours creates an impression of sparkling light.

Provenance

anonymous sale, Christie's (London), 4 June 1974, lot 135; purchased there by the Albany Gallery (London); Thomas Agnew & Sons (London), 20 January - 21 February 1975, no. 63; purchased there by Miss Dorothy Scharf (1942-2004); Scharf Bequest 2007

Exhibition History

Drawings Gallery Display - Pen to Brush: British Drawings and Watercolours, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 18/11/2021-28/02/2022

The Courtauld Collects - 20 Years of Acquisitions, Somerset House & London & England, 17/06/2010-19/09/2010

British Watercolours from the Scharf Bequest, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 15/10/2008-01/01/2009 ...More

102nd Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 20/01/1975-21/02/1975 ...Less

Literature

Noon, Patrick, Richard Parkes Bonington: The Complete Paintings, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
no. 153

Cormack, Malcolm, Bonington, Oxford: Phaidon, 1989.
p. 30
pl. 15

Peacock, Carlos, Richard Parkes Bonington, New York: Taplinger, 1980.
pl. 1

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower left, pen and brown ink, signed by the artist: "RP Bonington". Verso: lower right, graphite: "J.3423".

Collector's mark: none.

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