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Purley Hall, Berkshire

Watercolour
1756 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Cotes, Francis (artist)
Place of origin
Berkshire (painted)

A landscape view of a large country house was a popular subject for early watercolourists. This work is highly finished. The figures, presumably the owners of the house, gaze at their extensive property. Francis Cotes (1726-1770) is perhaps best known for his portraits in crayon. He was a founder-member of the Royal Academy in London.

Object details

Categories
Paintings
Landscapes
Topographical Watercolours
Object type
Watercolour
Titles
  • Purley Hall, Berkshire (popular title)
  • Landscape with View of a Country Seat (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour
Watercolour
Watercolour Drawing
Brief description
Watercolour by Francis Cotes depicting Purley Hall in Berkshire, entitled 'Landscape with View of a Country Seat'. Great Britain, 1756.
Physical description
Watercolour depicting Purley hall in Berkshire, a landscape with view of a country seat. Signed and dated by the artist.
Dimensions
  • Height: 14.5in
  • Width: 21.125in
Style
British School
Marks and inscriptions
F Cotes delt. 1756 (Signed and dated in pencil)
Gallery label
[Provisional label written by Ronald Parkinson for his travelling exhibition and accompanying book British Watercolours at the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A Publications, 1998.]

Francis COTES R.A. (1726-1770)
PURLEY HALL, BERKSHIRE 1756
Signed and dated by the artist F.Cotes delt. 1756
37.1 x 53.7 cm
Purchased 1932
P.35-1932

One of the earliest categories of subject-matter for watercolourists, along with portraits in miniature, botanical and ornithological studies, was the topographical view of a country house. Francis Cotes was a founder member of the Royal Academy, and is today principally known as a portrait artist in oils and crayons. But he also produced topographical watercolours, of which the one in the V&A is a fine example. The watercolour is highly finished, with the figures - presumably the owners of the house, proudly gazing at their extensive property - perhaps adding an extra, human, dimension to the meaning of the image.

The unusually low horizon with its distant sloping hills is broken by the towering trees in the foreground. Most of the trees are evidently newly planted, their slender trunks making a pattern of vertical lines on both left and right. The older tree, with its trifurcated trunk, dominates the composition, and frames the subject of the watercolour, the great house. The reaction to nature, here in 1756, connects the desire in the eighteenth century to tame the garden landscape by introducing man-made elements such as the urns on plinths, and at the same time enjoy contact with nature, in the company of the family - the husband and wife, their children - and their dogs.
Subjects depicted
Trees
Landscape
People
Houses
Place depicted
Berkshire
Summary
A landscape view of a large country house was a popular subject for early watercolourists. This work is highly finished. The figures, presumably the owners of the house, gaze at their extensive property. Francis Cotes (1726-1770) is perhaps best known for his portraits in crayon. He was a founder-member of the Royal Academy in London.
Bibliographic reference
Victoria & Albert Museum Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1932. London: HMSO, 1933.
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
P.35-1932

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Record createdMarch 9, 2001
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O56628/purley-hall-berkshire-watercolour-cotes-francis/
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