Figures resting by Derwentwater, Lake District
Figures resting by Derwentwater, Lake District
Figures resting by Derwentwater, Lake DistrictPen and grey ink and washes over traces of pencil on laid paper17.2 by 24.2 cm, 6 ¾ by 9 ½ in.Rowlandson was a compulsive sketcher of everything he saw and especially of people he encountered on his daily life of London. However his rarer countryside sketches often have a poetic quality and exhibit the quality of his draughtsmanship. Most of his pure landscape studies were drawn on his visits to his friend and patron Matthew Michell at his country house in Hengar, Cornwall. The present drawing may relate to Rowlandson's series of aquatints `The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque' of 1809-11 which satirise the fashion for visiting the Lake District following the publication of the Rev. William Gilpin's book on the subject. The lake and hills behind are not unlike the background to `Doctor Syntax sketching the Lake', the original watercolour for which is in the collection of the Wordsworth Trust (see Cecilia Powell, Savage Grandeur and Noblest Thoughts - Discovering the Lake District 1750-1820, no.58, p.109, ill. p.108) although it is unlikely that Rowlandson ever visited the Lakes himself.){kind=link}
Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827)
Figures resting by Derwentwater, Lake District
Pen and grey ink and washes over traces of pencil on laid paper
17.2 by 24.2 cm, 6 ¾ by 9 ½ in.
Rowlandson was a compulsive sketcher of everything he saw and especially of people he encountered on his daily life of London. However his rarer countryside sketches often have a poetic quality and exhibit the quality of his draughtsmanship. Most of his pure landscape studies were drawn on his visits to his friend and patron Matthew Michell at his country house in Hengar, Cornwall.
The present drawing may relate to Rowlandson's series of aquatints `The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque' of 1809-11 which satirise the fashion for visiting the Lake District following the publication of the Rev. William Gilpin's book on the subject. The lake and hills behind are not unlike the background to `Doctor Syntax sketching the Lake', the original watercolour for which is in the collection of the Wordsworth Trust (see Cecilia Powell, Savage Grandeur and Noblest Thoughts - Discovering the Lake District 1750-1820, no.58, p.109, ill. p.108) although it is unlikely that Rowlandson ever visited the Lakes himself.