Though George Cuit travelled as far as Italy, he made his reputation in Yorkshire, close to home; and thus he represents one of many regional schools of watercolour painting that developed through the later eighteenth century. The son of a builder, Cuit was born in Moulton near Richmond, Yorkshire on 8 September 1743. Educated at the Richmond School, he showed an early talent for drawing, and was taken up by Sir Lawrence Dundas of Aske Hall. In 1769, Dundas sent him to study painting in Italy, in the company of his former school friend, the architect Thomas Harrison, and he remained there for six years. On his return, he attempted to establish himself in London, and began to exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts (1776-1798). However, hampered by ill health, he returned to Richmond within two years. There he enjoyed a career as a landscape and portrait painter in oil and watercolour for over two decades.

He worked as a drawing master, numbering among his pupils William Young Ottley (collector and early British historian of Italian painting). In 1788, he collaborated with Robert Coatsworth in painting the scenery for the opening productions of Richmond’s Theatre Royal, and in the same period he also worked for the former naval captain Constantine Phipps who, as Baron Mulgrave, commissioned a set of views of Yorkshire ports visited by Captain Cook. He died in Richmond on 7 February 1818, a month after his wife. His son, George Cuitt, painter and etcher, may have added an extra ‘t’ to his name to distinguish himself from his father.

Cuitt’s surviving drawings are extremely rare. This Yorkshire view is one of only a few in a UK public collection.

Sotheby's London, 14 November 1996, lot 131 (with no indication of previous provenance); Chris Beetles Ltd; purchased there by the Spooner Trust; Gift of the Spooner Trust, 2023