The Romantic poet John Clare, who celebrated the English countryside in his poetry, wrote in his unpublished Essay of Landscape Painting, “The only artist that produces real English scenery in which British landscapes are seen and felt upon paper with all their poetry and exillerating [sic] expression of Beauty about them is [Peter] De Wint.”1 De Wint conveyed a sense of spontaneity and an emotional engagement with his subjects in line with a number of other artists, such as John Sell Cotman, David Cox, John Linnell, and John Constable, who developed a new “painterly way of watercolor.”2 John Lord characterized this method as “the use of full toned and coloured washes laid on in a seemingly direct manner and from which details—themselves often laid in with the brush rather than being defined by an underlying drawing—emerge as subordinate but complementary to the whole.”3
De Wint made his first visit to Glamorgan (Cardiff), South Wales, in 1824 and toured Wales several times thereafter, declaring it “a painter’s country.”4 To portray this view, De Wint was standing on the opposite bank or even in a boat to capture in the near distance Llandaff Cathedral, two miles from the center of Cardiff.5 On the right, a house or cluster of houses and laundry on a drying line appear by the riverbank, near an island that once divided the river into two watercourses. A mill stream used to power corn and textile mills is nearby. Two fishermen in a boat on the River Taff at left add to the tranquility of the scene, while several figures are laboring in a harvest field near the church’s graveyard in the background.6 De Wint has modified topographical elements such as the surrounding hills, which are less monumental in reality. He also placed a tree “to obscure the rather incongruous classical temple built in the 1740s by John Wood of Bath with the ruined nave,” seeking to emphasize the Romantic aspect of the ruin.7 It is known that De Wint also produced a color sketch of Llandaff, noted in De Wint’s posthumous sale at Christie’s on March 2, 1876, as lot 71.8 By the time De Wint exhibited this watercolor in 1848, an extensive rebuilding program of the cathedral had been started by T. H. Wyatt. By 1845, John Prichard had taken over the project, which continued irregularly until 1861.9 In the eighteenth century, Paul Sandby and Joseph Mallord William Turner drew this structure from the west.10 De Wint counted artists such as John Constable as admirers, and throughout his life he attracted a steady stream of patrons and pupils. —Dena M. Woodall
Notes
1. Clare wrote his ode to De Wint in 1835. See J. W. and A. Tibble, eds., The Prose of John Clare (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), 211–12.
2. In May 1831, John Constable presented De Wint with a copy of his published mezzotints after a selection of his landscapes, called English Landscapes. See Hammond Smith, Peter De Wint, 1784–1849 (London: F. Lewis, 1982), 25–26.
3. See John Lord, ed., Peter De Wint 1784–1849: For the Common Observer of Life and Nature, exh. cat. (Hampshire, VT: Lund Humphries, 2007), 12.
4. See David Scrase, Drawings and Watercolours by Peter De Wint: A Loan Exhibition Inaugurated at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, 1979), xii, xx.
5. This watercolor was listed in the Old Watercolor Society 1848 exhibition as Llandaff, purchased by “Vaughn.” On the third day of De Wint’s posthumous studio sale at Christie’s, London, on May 24, 1850, there is also a listing for Llandaff Cathedral, cat. 247. No one is listed as the purchaser. The Christie’s, London, sale from the artist’s family and the collections of J. and W. Vokins and the artist Edward Perigal lists another study in color called Llandaff, cat. 71, purchased by Lofthouse. See Smith, Peter De Wint, 1784–1849, 139, 145, 153.
6. The houses on the waterway never actually existed at that location. De Wint enjoyed painting harvest scenes, such as Peter De Wint, A Harvest Field, c. 1840s, watercolor, Victoria and Albert Museum, London [P16-1968]. Thanks to Craig S. Calvert and Martin Robson-Riley, senior access assistant, the National Library of Wales, for surveying Llandaff Welsh tithe maps. See correspondence, prints and drawings curatorial files, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
7. See Andrew Wyld, Peter de Wint 1784–1849, Colourist and Countryman (London: W/S Fine Art / Andrew Wyld, 2005), cat. 28. The temple was demolished and the cathedral rebuilt in a Gothic style. It was badly damaged in 1941 during World War II and was rebuilt by George Pace between 1949 and 1957.
8. See Christie’s, London, Catalogue of A Large Collection of Sketches by P. De Wint, Which Have Remained in the Possession of the Artist’s Family from the Time They Were Painted, March 2, 1876, lot 71 (as Llandaff; and another), and Wyld, Peter De Wint 1784–1849: Colourist and Countryman, cat. 28.
9. See John Newman, The Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 241.
10. For other portrayals of Llandaff Cathedral, see Paul Sandby, Llandaff Cathedral, c. 1775, watercolor and graphite, with touches of bodycolor, on paper, Victoria and Albert Museum [FA.554]; Joseph Mallord William Turner, Llandaff: The West Front of the Cathedral, 1795–96, graphite and watercolor on paper, Tate, Turner Bequest XXVIII [D00686]; Joseph Mallord William Turner, Llandaff: The West Front of the Cathedral, from South Wales Sketchbook, 1795, graphite on paper, Tate, Turner Bequest XXVI 4 [D00556]; and British School, Llandaff Cathedral, 18th century, oil on canvas, National Museum Cardiff NMW, museum purchase [A 3790]. Thanks to Craig S. Calvert and Donna Howard, volunteer archivist for the Llandaff Society, for correspondence about mapping this location, see correspondence, prints and drawings department files, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Llandaff Cathedral, South Wales
De Wint, Harriet. A Short Memoir of the Life of Peter De Wint and William Hilton RA. London: printed privately, 1849 and 1866. Reprinted in Peter De Wint, by Hammond Smith. London: F. Lewis, 1982.
Fairbanks, Theresa, and Scott Wilcox. Papermaking and the Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Paul Sandby and the Whatman Paper Mill. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
Hargraves, Matthew, and Scott Wilcox. Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
J. & W. Vokins. Peter De Wint, Centenary Exhibition. London: J. & W. Vokins, 1884.
Lord, John, ed. Peter De Wint 1784–1849: For the Common Observer of Life and Mature. Exh. cat. Hampshire, VT: Lund Humphries, 2007.
Oppé, A. P. “Introduction.” In Catalogue of the Exhibition of Water-Colours by Turner, Cox, and De Wint. Exh. cat. London: Thos Agnew & Sons, 1924.
Reynolds, Graham. English Watercolors: An Introduction. New York: New Amsterdam, 1988.
Scrase, David. Drawing and Watercolours by Peter De Wint. Exh. cat. Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum, 1979.
Smith, Hammond. Peter De Wint, 1784–1849. London: F. Lewis, 1982.
Wilcox, Scott. British Watercolors: Drawings of the 18th and 19th Centuries from the Yale Center for British Art. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1985.
Wilton, Andrew. British Watercolours 1750 to 1850. Oxford: Phaidon, 1977.
ProvenanceThe artist, 1848; [Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, London, 1848, cat. 258]; purchased by John Vaughn, 1848; [Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, by 1918]; purchased by Walter A. Barrett, 1918; [Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, by 1990 (as A Ruined Abbey near the Banks of a River, Mountains Beyond)]; [Andrew Wyld, London, by 2005 (as Llandaff)]; [Christie’s, London, Old Master and British Drawings and Watercolours, December 2, 2014, lot 188]; [Guy Peppiatt, Ltd., London, by 2015]; purchased by the MFAH, 2015.