FDA-D.1643-2021

Object number

FDA-D.1643-2021

Object type

drawing
painting

Title

Manor House, Eton
Manor House

Title Type

assigned by cataloguer
Previous title

Description

Painted view of a house through a large arched gateway with wooden doors; trees and figures in the middle ground

Comments

In 1922, Nora Davison exhibited a work titled The Archway to Weston’s Yard, possibly this watercolour. The viewer is positioned within Weston’s Yard, looking back at Manor House through the stone archway. Manor House was built on the location of one of the original manors of Eton. It was in use as a boys’ boarding house from the early 18th century. This painting shows the Victorian boarding house that replaced earlier buildings on the site. Today the house also possesses a mansard roof extension, added in the 1960s. The large wooden doors on the archway, in the foreground of Davison’s view, have since been removed.
Previous boarders at Manor House include Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852) and, during the First World War, King Leopold III of Belgium (1901–1983).
Nigel Jaques purchased this watercolour in 1978, the year he became House Master of Manor House.

Content (place)

Eton

Dimensions

height (frame): 322mm
width (frame): 258mm
height (actual size): 188mm
width (actual size): 126mm

Material

watercolour
paper

Person

Davison, Nora, 1855 - 1950 (Artist)

Object history note

Provenance: Sold through J. Manley Gallery, High Street, Eton, Windsor, Berkshire; from whom purchased by Nigel John Trefusis Jaques (1935-2020; DCW, 1948–54) in 1978; by whom bequeathed to Eton College in 2021

Exhibited: ‘A Woman’s View: Nora Davison’s watercolours of Eton’, Verey Gallery, Eton College, 23 May to 28 September 2025 (catalogue number 8)