FDA-D.446-2010
Parts
Object number
FDA-D.446-2010
Object type
Identification
Title
View on the River Camel, Cornwall
View on the River Camelford, Cornwall, with Anglers by a Waterfall
Pilkington
View on the River Camelford, Cornwall, with Anglers by a Waterfall
Pilkington
Title Type
Common name
Previous title
collection
Previous title
collection
Comments
However much Rowlandson was embedded in city life, with its politics and high living, as well as the drinking and gambling he indulged in to the full, he was also evidently a great lover of the country. He not only travelled widely, filling sketchbooks with views of isolated villages or seaside coves, he relished the experience of travel itself, as can be seen from his many drawings of coaches and carriages, of inn yards and roadside taverns. In contrast to the biting satires of Bath and Brighton he drew in the closing years of the eighteenth century, after 1800 he developed a strain of social commentary of a milder, more affectionate kind. Rowlandson often visited Cornwall, where his patron Matthew Mitchell had a country house. Grego records one series of views published in 1805 (Rowlandson the caricaturist, 1880 II, p.56) and another set, Etchings of landscapes, from Scenes in Cornwall, appeared in 1810-12 (Scenery of Great Britain and Ireland...from the library of J.R.Abbey, 1952, no.105). The River Camel runs off the north side of Bodmin Moor, and gives the town of Camelford its name. It is still a favourite haunt of fishermen, but here, the spectacular sight of the foaming water is used as a setting for a neatly contrived human drama, with the roles of the participants tellingly observed.
Other number
Pi 267
Description
Dimensions
height (actual size): 292mm
width (actual size): 457mm
width (actual size): 457mm
Inscription
Inscribed on the front of the artist's mount 'River Camelford, Cornwall' and on the verso `View on the River Camelford, Cornwall'
Materials & techniques note
Pencil, pen and ink, watercolour
Production
Person
Rowlandson, Thomas, 1756 - 1827 (Artist)
History and association
Object history note
Provenance: Collection of Alan Pilkington; by whom presented/bequeathed to Eton College
Exhibited: 'A Genius for Watercolour', Christie’s, London, 6 to 24 January 2003, catalogue number 36; 'Watercolours from the Eton College Collections', Verey Gallery, Eton College, 24 November 2018 to 24 February 2019
Exhibited: 'A Genius for Watercolour', Christie’s, London, 6 to 24 January 2003, catalogue number 36; 'Watercolours from the Eton College Collections', Verey Gallery, Eton College, 24 November 2018 to 24 February 2019
Previous ownership
Pilkington, Alan, 1879 - 1973: Bequeathed to Eton by Alan Pilkington, 1973
References
• Wilcox, T., A Genius for Watercolour; Watercolours from the Eton College Collection, Christie's exhibition catalogue, London, 2003 (p. 44 & 45 illustrated), Catalogue number: 36
