Thursday, September 16, 2010

David Cox Snr - Conway Castle



1783-1859.

Price Realized £23,900

oil on canvas
25 1/8 x 36 3/8 in. (63.8 x 92.4 cm.)

N. Solly, Memoir of the Life of David Cox, 1873, p.207.

David Cox, who was born in Birmingham, moved to London in 1804 where he received lessons from John Varley. He moved to Hereford in 1815, as drawing master at Miss Croucher's school, where he lived until 1827, then returning to London. While in Hereford he published a Treatise on Landscape Painting and Effect in Watercolours (1814), Progressive Lessons in Landscape for Young Beginners (1816) and the The Young Artist's Companion (1819-20). Cox painted mainly in watercolour but also in oil, which he began to take more seriously later in his career, taking lessons from William Muller. He made many sketching tours of England and Wales, visiting the latter for the first time in 1805. This composition is dated by Solly (op.cit.) to 1848 who comments that 'The effect is that of very early morning, tender yet rather harmonious in colour'. Conway Castle which was built for King Edward I in the late thirteenth century was a popular subject with artists in the early nineteenth century who were attracted by its Romantic grandeur.

No comments: