Watercolour by Kenneth Rowntree, 'Interior, Church of SS. Peter and Paul, Little Saling', from the Recording Britain Collection (Essex); England, ca.1940.

Watercolour; signed. View of the interior of the church, showing pews and a section of the carved stone pulpit. As with his exterior view of the church, Rowntree uses a tall, narrow format to reflect the proportions of the 14th-century church. His careful depiction of light and shadow reveals a dilapidated but luminous and ancient interior. He records details such as the white jug left in the pew, the cracks and flaking plaster on the wall, and the red-painted circular motif on the wall, a consecration cross dated to 1380.

Given by the Pilgrim Trust

This work is from the 'Recording Britain' collection of topographical watercolours and drawings made in the early 1940s during the Second World War. In 1940 the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, launched a scheme to employ artists to record the home front in Britain, funded by a grant from the Pilgrim Trust. It ran until 1943 and some of the country's finest watercolour painters, such as John Piper, Sir William Russell Flint and Rowland Hilder, were commissioned to make paintings and drawings of buildings, scenes, and places which captured a sense of national identity. Their subjects were typically English: market towns and villages, churches and country estates, rural landscapes and industries, rivers and wild places, monuments and ruins. Northern Ireland was not covered, only four Welsh counties were included, and a separate scheme ran in Scotland.

The scheme was known as 'Recording the changing face of Britain' and was established by Sir Kenneth Clark, then the director of the National Gallery. It ran alongside the official War Artists' Scheme, which he also initiated. Clark was inspired by several motives: at the outbreak of war in 1939, there was a concern to document the British landscape in the face of the imminent threat of bomb damage, invasion, and loss caused by the operations of war. This was allied to an anxiety about changes to the landscape already underway, such as the rapid growth of cities, road building and housing developments, the decline of rural ways of life and industries, and new agricultural practices, which together contributed to the idea of a 'vanishing Britain'. Clark also wanted to help artists, and the traditional forms of British art such as watercolour painting, to survive during the uncertain conditions of wartime. He in turn was inspired by America's Federal Arts Project which was designed to give artists employment during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Over 1500 works were eventually produced by 97 artists, of whom 63 were specially commissioned. At the time the collection had a propaganda role, intended to boost national morale by celebrating Britain's landscapes and heritage. Three exhibitions were held during the war at the National Gallery, and pictures from the collection were sent on touring exhibitions and to galleries all around the country. After the war, the whole collection was given to the V&A by the Pilgrim Trust in 1949, and it was documented in a four volume catalogue published between 1946 and 1949. For many years the majority of the collection was on loan to councils and record offices in each county, until recalled by the V&A around 1990. The pictures now form a memorial to the war effort, and a unique record of their time.

Historical significance: Ravilious and Bawden were largely responsible for reviving the art of watercolour painting in the 1930s, bringing to it a distinctive style with a strong emphasis on pattern and texture. On the evidence of his Recording Britain pictures, Rowntree was very much a part of this tendency.

At the time he painted this watercolour, Rowntree was living in the nearby village of Great Bardfield, which also numbered Eric Ravilious, Michael Rothenstein, and Edward Bawden among its residents. Although their individual styles differed dramatically, all were working on topographical subjects, primarily in watercolour.

In 1940 the Ministry of Labour, in association with the Pilgrim Trust, established a project to commission artists to provide a record of the changing face of Britain. This remarkably ambitious scheme was known as 'Recording Britain'. The secretary of the Central Institute of Art and Design recommended in 1939 that 'artists should be appointed to make drawings, paintings and prints at the war fronts, in factories, workshops, shipyards and on the land, and of the changed life of the towns and villages, thus making a permanent record of life during the war which would be a memorial to the national effort, and of particular local value'. The impetus behind the project was the threat of extensive bomb damage throughout the Second World War, particularly in the cities but also in the countryside.

This watercolour was commissioned for the 'Recording Britain' project. Kenneth Rowntree (1915-1997) painted views in several English and Welsh counties. In Essex (where he was then living), his contribution was a series of exteriors and interiors of local churches. He specialised in the art of watercolour, and demonstrates a freshness of colour and brushwork. This church at Little Saling, Essex, dates from the 14th century.

E.1412-1949