Aquatint/Etching
Maker & role
Joseph Farington (b.1747, d.1821), Artist; J.C. Stadler (active 1817-1820), Engraver; John Boydell (b.1719, d.1804), Publisher
Production date
1793
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Object detail
Title
View of Windsor from Clewer
Production place
Collection
Measurements
0 - Whole, H: 22 x W: 33cm (H: 220 x W: 330mm); 0 - Whole, H: 58.6 x W: 38.3cm (H: 586 x W: 383mm)
Production notes
After Joseph Farington.
The later (c. 1960s) black and gilt timber frame of V2007/3-1 has the label of ‘George Pullman & Sons, Ltd. / Fine Art printers / and Publishers. / Picture Frame Makers / 24-27 Thayer Street, Manchester Square [London] W.1’
The later (c. 1960s) black and gilt timber frame of V2007/3-1 has the label of ‘George Pullman & Sons, Ltd. / Fine Art printers / and Publishers. / Picture Frame Makers / 24-27 Thayer Street, Manchester Square [London] W.1’
Subject Place
Signature & marks
The following is printed on the grey border beneath the work: 'View of WINDSOR from Clewer' ‘J. Farington R.A. delt. [artist], Pub[lished] June 1. 1793 by J. & J. Boydell, Shakespeare … Gallery Pall Mall & Cheapside [London] J.C. Stadler sculpt. [engraver]’.
Credit line
Gift, through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2006
Caroline Simpson Collection, Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caroline Simpson Collection, Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
View of Windsor from Clewer (1793)
Description
Hand-coloured aquatint view, captioned ‘View of Windsor from [the nearby village of] Clewer’. The following is printed on the grey border beneath the view: ‘J. Farington R.A. delt. [artist], Pub[lished] June 1. 1793 by J. & J. Boydell, Shakespeare … Gallery Pall Mall & Cheapside [London] J.C. Stadler sculpt. [engraver]’. The view depicts the town and castle of Windsor, looking across the river Thames (in the middleground) from a road peopled by a traveller on horseback and a man and woman travelling on foot. It shows both wards of Windsor Castle, St George’s Chapel, the 12th century central round keep on its Norman motte and the medieval State Apartments, as refurbished in the 17th century.
This aquatint is from the two-volume ‘An History of the River Thames’ published by John Boydell in 1794-6, where it was reproduced as plate 38 in volume 1. It belongs to a great ‘explosion’ of topographical publishing in the closing decades of the 18th and opening decades of the 19th century, that both drew on and fuelled the Romantic and Picturesque Movements. The writings of William Gilpin, Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight proposed a reappraisal of the way landscape was viewed based on the compositions of landscape painters and encouraged public and patriotic recognition of the history and natural beauty of Britain. The poet William Wordsworth in works such as ‘Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey …1798’ proposed looking to nature and the evidence of human history for moral messages, informed by an earlier concept of the sublime, the power of God evident in creation overwhelming the viewer. Tourism throughout Britain had grown during the 18th century and increased during the 1790s – 1810s when continental travel was constrained during the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Wordsworth was one of these tourists.
Folios produced by entrepreneurial publishers such as Boydell and Ackermann were intended for ‘drawing room’ consumption. Prints from these folios were framed separately, with many surviving in early 19th century frames. Topographical art was an important genre in early Australia with John Eyre’s views of the east and western sides of Sydney Cove (1809) and Robert Burford’s Panorama of Sydney (based on drawings by Augustus Earle,1827) as important examples.
This aquatint is from the two-volume ‘An History of the River Thames’ published by John Boydell in 1794-6, where it was reproduced as plate 38 in volume 1. It belongs to a great ‘explosion’ of topographical publishing in the closing decades of the 18th and opening decades of the 19th century, that both drew on and fuelled the Romantic and Picturesque Movements. The writings of William Gilpin, Uvedale Price and Richard Payne Knight proposed a reappraisal of the way landscape was viewed based on the compositions of landscape painters and encouraged public and patriotic recognition of the history and natural beauty of Britain. The poet William Wordsworth in works such as ‘Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey …1798’ proposed looking to nature and the evidence of human history for moral messages, informed by an earlier concept of the sublime, the power of God evident in creation overwhelming the viewer. Tourism throughout Britain had grown during the 18th century and increased during the 1790s – 1810s when continental travel was constrained during the wars with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Wordsworth was one of these tourists.
Folios produced by entrepreneurial publishers such as Boydell and Ackermann were intended for ‘drawing room’ consumption. Prints from these folios were framed separately, with many surviving in early 19th century frames. Topographical art was an important genre in early Australia with John Eyre’s views of the east and western sides of Sydney Cove (1809) and Robert Burford’s Panorama of Sydney (based on drawings by Augustus Earle,1827) as important examples.
Accession number
V2007/3-1
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