Oil painting, 'Landscape with Cottage and Water-Wheel', Patrick Nasmyth, early-19th century

A path on the left divides: the right fork leading to a cottage with water- wheel; the main path, with a woman, in a red shawl, and a child, leading to a village with a church in the distance. Foreground, right, a pond with ducks.

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon

Bequeathed by Joshua Dixon, 1886

Ref: Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860, (Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990), p.xx.
Joshua Dixon (1811-1885), was the son of Abraham Dixon of Whitehaven and brother of George Dixon (who was head of the foreign merchants firm of Rabone Brothers in Birmingham 1883-98). Educated at Leeds Grammar School, and was deputy chairman of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company 1869-70. Died Winslade, near Exeter, 7 December 1885. Bequeathed all his collection of drawings, watercolours and oil paintings to the Bethnal Green Museum; they have since been transferred to the V&A. He also collected engravings, Japanese vases and panels, and bronze and marble sculpture.

This painting is signed ‘P. Nasmyth’, however, it was the result of a collaboration with John Wilson, a Scottish marine artist and scene painter, who began the work. The two artists were closely connected; both lived in Stangate Street, Lambeth, and were said to frequent the local Mitre Inn, along with other artists, authors and actors. They were also regular exhibitors at the Royal Academy, Society of British Artists and the British Institution.

In subject matter and composition, 1019-1886 shows the influence of Alexander Nasmyth, Patrick Nasmyth’s father, who may have tutored Wilson in Edinburgh; see Alexander Naxmyth’s Landscape with Cottage, signed and dated 1828 (Cat. No. 20, Alexander Nasmyth and his Family: an Exhibition, Monks Hall Museum, 1973). The use of the water wheel mill as a principal theme also reflects the influence on Wilson’s and Nasmyth’s work of the 17th century Dutch school, particularly Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-82) and Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709), for whom this was an important theme.

This unidentified landscape was a collaborative work between John Wilson and Patrick Nasmyth. Both artists were known to each other professionally as well as personally and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, Society of British Artists and the British Institution. The adoption of the water mill as a theme also reflects the artists’ mutual absorption of the 17th-century, Dutch school.

1019-1886