Durham from the Fields

Durham from the Fields

Category
Reference

2744

Thomas Shotter Boys (1803-1874)
Durham from the Fields

Signed lower centre: T. Boys 1830
Watercolour over pencil heightened with bodycolour, gum arabic and scratching out
9.3 by 16 cm., 3 ¾ by 6 ¼ in.

Provenance:
Norman D. Newall (1888-1952), his sale, Christie's, 13th December 1979, lot 9, where bought by the father of the present owners

Exhibited:
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Laing Art Gallery, Coronation Exhibition, 1953, no.45

Born in London, Boys was apprenticed to the engraver George Cooke until 1823 when he moved to Paris. There he befriended Richard Parkes Bonington and taught William Callow and Ambrose Poynter before returning to London in 1837. This watercolour dates from one of Boys' trips back to England in the early 1830s when he visited various parts of the north of England. His greatest watercolours date from this period.

Boys drew two later views of Durham Cathedral seen from the river (see James Roundell,
Thomas Shotter Boys, 1974, p. 168, plates 74 and 75).