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View of Painswick House and Gardens, Gloucestershire
robins, thomas, born 1716 - died 1760 - Enlarge image
View of Painswick House and Gardens, Gloucestershire
- Object:
Drawing
- Date:
1748 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
robins, thomas, born 1716 - died 1760 (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen and ink and watercolour on paper
- Credit Line:
Accepted by H M Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Victoria & Albert Museum, 2000
- Museum number:
E.1308:67-2001
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level D, case ABOVE PRESS 117 E
Drawing of Painswick House, Gloucestershire, by Thomas Robins. Painswick House was built for Charles Hyett in the 1730s.
Thomas Robins is an enigmatic artist and, so far, little has been discovered of his life. He may be descended from the family of Robins who held the manor of Matson. He published a Prospect of Bath in 1757 and A View of the Baths and Pump Room in 1764. His son Thomas Robins the Younger was a drawing master.
Between 1747 and 1770, Robins produced a series of drawings and paintings of English country houses and, in particular, their gardens. His surviving drawings and paintings epitomise English rococo taste. Robins was either specially attracted to rococo gardens, or had a reputation for the delineation of such gardens in the circles of cognoscenti of the rococo.
Robins and his work are of significant interest both topographically and aesthetically. His pictures of rococo gardens, with their vistas and ornamental buildings, are of great historical importance because they immortalise a fashion whose exemplars have disappeared. Robins, who was in many respects an ‘amateur’ painter, never succumbed to conventional facility and his views retain the charm and freshness of a personal discovery.
