drawing
- Museum number
- 1980,0510.21
- Description
-
Design for the monument to perpetrate the fame of British Artists of 1828; monument consisting of column inscribed with the names of British artists, resting on pedestal, with more inscriptions, figures to left seated on stone slabs, also inscribed with names, and to right and in foreground, scaffolding erected on column. 1830
Watercolour, with pan and brown ink
- Production date
- 1830
- Dimensions
-
Height: 376 millimetres
-
Width: 277 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Stainton 1985
In 1826 the artist George Fennel Robson was commissioned by Mrs George Haldimand, the wife of a leading financier and sister of James Prinsep, "to form a representative album of drawings by the best watercolour painters of the day". When complete, in 1828, the collection amounted to one hundred drawings. It remained intact until 1980, and was the most elaborate surviving example of the then contemporary fashion among collectors at that period for compiling such albums.
James Prinsep's watercolour must have been intended as a frontispiece to the album, since all the artists recorded on the column were represented in the collection. Together with Turner, Cox and De Wint are the names of those whose reputations have faded into near-obscurity - for example. Charles Wild (1781-1835) and Samuel Austin (1796-1834). Yet Cotman, who had left London in 1806 to take up a frustrating provincial career as a drawing-master, and whose work is generally thought to have been ignored during the 1820s, has achieved a place on the column.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1985, BM, British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860, no.161
- Acquisition date
- 1980
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1980,0510.21
