Born in Monmouthshire, Thomas Tudor was the son of Owen Tudor, a bookseller. He began to draw at a young age, providing plans and drawings of local houses. He exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts between 1809 and 1819, but became a land agent, building Tudor House at Wyesham near Monmouth, where he lived for the rest of his life.1 Tudor was also known as an art collector and visited Joseph Mallord William Turner’s studio in June 1847; that same year, on four different occasions, he frequented in London the Windus collection, which contained Turner’s watercolors.2
Tudor created a large oeuvre, mainly of landscapes from the counties of Monmouth and Hereford in Wales.3 This unfinished watercolor reveals his artistic process, in which he sketched out the entire scene in black chalk with quick hatches before layering in watercolors, in this case only in the river and a touch on the bridge. The sky remains completely bare, indicating that perhaps he would later brush in an even blue wash with no clouds in that portion of the composition. Punch marks along the top edge indicate that the sheet was part of a ledger or sketchbook. Another drawing of a bridge across a waterfall in a mountainous landscape in the British Museum is probably from one such ledger, as it is of a similar size and paper type.4 When he made this drawing, Tudor was standing on the northern bank of the River Dee, perhaps thirty to forty feet west of Pontcysyllte Bridge (pontcysyllte meaning “the bridge that connects”), also called the Old Bridge, originally built in 1697, which appears in the foreground. He looks east toward the eighteenth- through early nineteenth-century Pontcysyllte aqueduct, in Llangollen, Denbighshire County, in North Wales.5 On the verso of this sheet, Tudor has drawn a small, quick sketch of mountains, most likely from the surrounding area. This river valley was an important access route through the mountains, and there were several crossings both by bridge and ferry. The high aqueduct, the longest in Britain, was portrayed by many artists at the time, including by Turner, in his North Wales sketchbook, and John “Warwick” Smith, who made a more distant view in watercolor.6 The aqueduct was also popularly pictured in published engravings; it stands as a symbol of human achievement, but in collaboration with nature.7 —Dena M. Woodall
Notes
1. Tudor worked as an estate agent for Colonel Morgan Clifford, a landowner in Monmouthshire and also in the Llandeilo section of Carmarthenshire, which Tudor also oversaw. See H. J. Lloyd-Jones, “Thomas Tudor,” National Library of Wales Journal 21, no. 3 (Summer 1980): 243.
2. In July 1847, he visited Dominici Colnaghi, the son of the founder of the Colnaghi gallery in London, and it is there, on a number of occasions, where he met other amateur and professional artists, such as Joseph Mallord William Turner. He visited numerous art studios and galleries during his lengthy stays in London. See Lloyd-Jones, “Thomas Tudor,” 243.
3. There is a brief entry in The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920. See also Lloyd-Jones, “Thomas Tudor,” 243–45.
4. See Thomas Tudor, A Bridge across a Waterfall in a Mountainous Landscape, no date, black chalk (possibly), on gray-toned paper, with scratching out, 1785–1855, British Museum [1978, 1007.9]. The edges of the sheet appear lighter, as with this drawing in the Stuart Collection, and the gray wash over the entire sheet was probably added. Thanks to Tina Tan, conservator of works on paper at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for consultation on this work and others in the Stuart Collection.
5. I appreciate Craig S. Calvert’s investigation of this location using Google Earth Studio and by other means. See report in prints and drawings curatorial files, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
6. See Joseph Mallord William Turner, View across the Vale of Llangollen towards Dinas Brân, with Pontcysyllte, in North Wales Sketchbook, and A Bridge over a Rocky Stream? near Llangollen, in Drawings Made on the Midland Tour, 1794, graphite on wove paper, Tate, Turner Bequest, CCCLXXVII 11, 12 [D01393] and [D36583]; John “Warwick” Smith, Aqueduct near Llangollen, Denbighshire, N.W 360 Yards Long, 40 Feet High above the Dee, Denbighshire, 1784–1806, watercolor, the National Library of Wales [1443261]; James Ward, The Vale of Llangollen, no date, pen and brown ink with graphite on wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection [B1975.4.1436]; John Varley, The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct near Llangollen, 1826, watercolor, Bonhams, London, November 9, 2004, lot 55. In Varley’s portrayal, he has highly exaggerated the hills and is viewing the aqueduct from the eastern side, looking west toward Dinas Brân. See also its portrayal in oil: Georde Arnald, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, 1826, oil on canvas, private collection, unknown.
7. See Adam (active c. 1821–1922), L’Aqueduc en Fonte de Pont-y-Cysylte: qui passe sur la rivière de Dee, près de Llangollen, dans le pays de Galles, est navigable et fait partie du Canal d’Ellesmere (The Pont-y-Cysyllte Cast-Iron Aqueduct: Which Runs over the River Dee, near Llangollen, Wales, Is Navigable and Forms Part of the Ellesmere Canal), 1821, engraving on paper, the National Library of Wales; and T. Wallis, Thomas H. Shepherd, and James Tingle, Pont-Y-Casullte Aqueduct: In the Vale of Llangollen, Denbighshire, c. 1840, published in London, engraving on paper, the National Library of Wales.
Pont Cyslltau, Denbighshire [recto]; Mountainous landscape [verso]
Joyner, Paul. Thomas Tudor 1785–1855: An Artist from Monmouth. Exh. cat. Aberystwyth, UK: National Library of Wales, 1996.
Lloyd-Johnes, Herbert J. “Thomas Tudor.” National Library of Wales Journal 21, no. 3, (Summer 1980): 243–45.
Mallalieu, Huon. “Thomas Tudor.” In The Dictionary of British Watercolour Artists up to 1920. Vol. 1, 2nd ed., 340. Woodbridge, UK: Antique Collector’s Club, 1986.
“Thomas Tudor.” In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Https://doi.org/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00300321.
Provenance[Walker’s Galleries, London, by 1959]; purchased by Walter Augustus Brandt (1902–1978), 1959–1978; by descent, 1978–2024; [Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd., London, 2024]; given to MFAH, 2024.