The 19th Century

Many artists depicted this idyllic stretch of the Thames, including William Marlow, who, alongside Richard Wilson (1714-82), ranks as one of the foremost topographical landscapists of the 18th century. From about 1756 until 1761, Marlow studied under the direction of the "English Canaletto", Samuel Scott. Marlow soon outgrew his master and moved on to the St Martin's Lane Academy, where he met and befriended Sir Joshua Reynolds, later founder of the Royal Academy. On his return from his tour of France and Italy between 1765 and 1768, Marlow exhibited extensively, and by 1788 was director and vice president of the Incorporated Society of Artists, which rivalled the Royal Academy.

Like his former tutor before him, Marlow left London in about 1783 for Twickenham. During his time there he painted a number of views of the river, five of which were bequeathed by Nellie Ionides to the Borough Art Collection. According to the painter and diarist Joseph Farington, Marlow lived with the butcher Mr Curtis and took on his son John Curtis as his only know pupil.

Marlow's success and income from property gave him financial independence from patronage. Painting purely for pleasure, he could indulge other interests, Farington stated: "Marlow had long given up painting for amusement more agreeable to him, the making of telescopes and other articles"

The White House in Kew. Artist: William Marlow.

This delightful water colour shows the White House in Kew, later the first Kew Palace, the Palladian by the hand of John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury.

Fisher has been immortalised for posterity in two acclaimed landscapes by John Constable of Salisbury Cathedral. The bishop a "kind monitor for 25 years", was a friend and patron of the artist. He and his nephew Archdeacon John Fisher offered Constable accommodation on his lengthy stays in Salisbury, along with advice and painting supplies. Fisher commissioned a view of Salisbury Cathedral and his nephew purchased Constable's The White Horse. Later the archdeacon sold both back to the artists.

Nothing is known about the bishop's passion for painting or when he visited the area. Two unsigned views in the Paton Collection of Marble Hill House and Little Marble Hill may be by John Fisher.

Cattle grazing on Kew Green.

This delicate, almost naive, water colour depicts fenced cattle grazing on Kew Green. The view, which shows the green split by the road that ran past the palace to the ferry, is dominated by St Anne's Church on the left. This Chapel was built by a group of subscribers, which included many residents of Kew Green. Queen Anne gave the group permission to use common ground as the site and offered £100 towards the cost of what she called "My Little Church". The plain, simple construction was completed in 1714 and dedicated to St Anne.  

After the queen's death the chapel was used by the Hanoverian monarchy when they stayed at the nearby royal residences Richmond Lodge, The White House and Dutch House (Kew Palace).  

The church is the famous last resting place of the artist Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88). He is buried alongside the painter Joshua Kirby (1716-74). Kirby moved to Kew when he became drawing master to the royal family. Gainsborough, who was also favoured by George III, often visited his friend at Kew and stayed near the church.

This work, by an unknown artist, was recently recognised by a conservator as possibly being an early work by John Constable (1776-1837), who alongside Turner is considered one of the greatest British landscape artists. When the work was taken out of its frame the attribution "John Constable?" was found written.

A Rowlandson vignette

Rowlandson depicts the social crossroads where all life congregated including the public thoroughfares, stages, ferries, parks, commons, market-places, coffee-houses, print-shops and theatres of his day. These vignettes of everyday life, alongside his political satires, are the work for which he is best remembered.

Rowlandson developed a taste for gambling, and his considerable and varied output of sometimes coarse caricatures were primarily created for financial gain. Yet there is another side to Rowlandson, and in recent years his work has undergone reassessment. Where once he was considered ‘talented but idle’, he is now classed as one of our finest native draughtsmen. His delicate touch derives much from rococo painting, in particular the works of Watteau, which he encountered in Paris as a student at the Royal Academy Schools in 1772.

Asgill House lies at the intersection of these stylistic traits. The figures, representing the fashionable beau monde, only occasionally lapse into outright caricature. The view is an accurate study of the fine Palladian villa constructed between 1757-8 from a design by Sir Robert Taylor. Asgill House was owned by the banker, M.P. and Lord Mayor of London Sir Charles Asgill. It was then, as it is now, a much admired landmark along the Richmond riverside.

Based on an earlier sketch, Richmond Bridge (c.1800), has been reversed, rendering it topographically incorrect. Rowlandson uses his trademark sketchy trees to cover the area on the right where Asgill House and Cholmondeley Lodge would have appeared. Rowlandson contrasts the toiling workers on the bridge with the wealthy gentry fishing at their leisure on the riverbank. This work, one of a series of Rowlandson’s riverside views which includes Barnes Terrace (c.1810), are fine example of his purer non-caricature style.

Richmond Hill landscape. Artist: Thomas Christopher Hofland.

This large monumental work is an exercise in perspective, the low horizon and sky, which takes over half the composition, adds to the drama of the work. The figures in the foreground lead the eye down to Petersham Meadows. In the middle distance lies Little Marble Hill, home of the painter Lady Diana Beauclerk and in the distance, the river winds through Twickenham beyond. The shepherds and grazing cattle lend the work a pastoral feel. This work was inspired by the Arcadian landscapes of Claude Lorraine (1600-1682) and Gaspard Dughet Poussin (1615-1672).

Hofland was a founder member of the Society of British Painters and a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His meticulously detailed landscapes of the area proved popular and were engraved.

In 1815, Hofland moved to Richmond and two years later moved to Montpelier Road in Twickenham. He was the tutor of ‘Richmond Painter’ George Hilditch (1803-1857).

Only 40 works by 22 women artists are help in the collection - less than 2%. This reflects past accessioning and art history's former neglect of professional and, in particular, amateur women artists. It is therefore fortunate that in 2000, 6 further works by Emily Rebecca Prinsep were gifted by Raymond Gill, complementing the 8 water colours, sepia drawings and drawings already in the collection.

Emily Rebecca Prinsep was one of the most talented English amateur women artists of the 19th century. She was the sister of 3 brothers who had distinguished careers in India. Two of her brothers William (1796-1874) and Thomas (d.1830) were amateur artists and she was the aunt of the Pre-Raphaelite painter Valentine Cameron Prinsep, R.A. (1836-1904). From the 1820s until the 1850s, Emily Rebecca painted a series of remarkable topographical landscapes of East Sheen, Mortlake, Richmond and Hampton Court Palace.

Spencer House which stood in Christchurch Road, on the site of Martindale and Spencer gardens was demolished in 1907. It was for many years the residence of Frederick Reeves (1763-1842), formerly of the Bengal Civil Service. He was possibly a cousin of the artist.

View from Richmond Hill taken from the roof of Lord Cardigan’s house on Richmond Hill. Artist: Emily Rebecca Prinsep. Landscape.

This panoramic scene made up of five sheets of paper joined together. It depicts the view from Richmond Hill taken from the roof of Lord Cardigan’s house on Richmond Hill. Houses listed from left to right include: ‘Mr Hunts…Arch Deacon Cambridge…Sir Walter Waller, Twickenham…Lord Edgecombe…Windsor Castle’.

George was the son of celebrated landscape painter George Barret Snr. (1732–84), a founder member of the Royal Academy, established in 1769. In addition, both George’s brother James and sister Mary painted landscapes. George Jnr. specialised in romantic classical landscapes inspired by the paintings of 17th century artist Claude Gellée Lorrain.

View from Twickenham. Artist: George Barret Junior.

His famous View at Twickenham which depicts the stretch of river near Duck’s Walk in Twickenham has, since it was painted, changed drastically. The area, close to Richmond Bridge, has subsequently been developed and the properties no longer have a riverside view. Park lodge, situated on the left still stands, as does Bute Lodge in the centre of the painting. The house on the right was demolished in 1927 and replaced in the 1930s by Old House Gardens.

The boat in the foreground is the steam packet ‘Diana’ which ran from Queenshithe to Richmond

The cluster of houses concentrated around the Parish church has long been a popular vantage-point for artists. This work acts as the counterpart to the nocturnal scene by Pether reproduced on the facing page.

Landscape. Artist: George Barrett Junior.

Twickenham Parish Church is inspired by the topographical realism of seventeenth century painters and Constable’s ‘experiments’ and ‘enquiries’ into the ‘science’ of painting, is an attempt at capturing a fleeting moment, conveying the light and atmosphere of gathering storm-clouds.

Little is known about Henry Pether (1800-1880), although his work merits a monologue. Henry Pether (1800-1880) came from a family of prolific painters. Both his father Abraham (1756-1812) and his brother Sebastian (1790-1844), alleged inventor of the stomach pump, created accomplished landscapes. What is remarkable is that all three artists concentrated almost exclusively on nocturnal scenes. Like his father who came to be known as ‘Moonlight Pether’; Henry explored the ethereal other-worldly quality of night, depicting the nocturnal Thames around the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral and Greenwich where he lived for some time between 1830-1855.

In Twickenham by Moonlight, the English picturesque style has been combined with the romanticism of artists such as Caspar David Friedrich (1744-1840). The interplay of light and shade is here examined to full effect, creating a hermetic, contemplative mood. The landscape is dominated by the Thames which reflects the subtle glow of the full-moon above. Counterbalancing Eel Pie Island is St. Mary’s Church, adding an extra dimension to the already ‘religious’ quality of the painting.

George Hilditch's atmospheric, detailed view of the Twickenham and Richmond riverside led him to be known as "The Richmond Painter". Hilditch was born in the City of London in 1803, the son of a silk merchant also called George Hilditch. George was later to join his father in the silk business, running the company after his death in 1832 with his brothers. During his childhood George and his family holidayed in the relatively rural surroundings of Richmond. According to their family friend, tutor and author of Richmond and Its Vicinity (1824) Dr John Evans, their summers were spent "admiring its sequestered situation and its vicinity to the Thames, where the young folks, fishing and rowing, daily enjoy their retreat in the country". The family stayed at Montpelier Row in Twickenham, and it was here that both George and his brother Richard became pupils of Hofland.

Hofland had a lasting impact on Hilditch's style and composition. He encouraged him to submit work to the Royal Academy, and in the summer of 1843, aged 20, Hilditch exhibited there. This was the start of a successful career. Hilditch regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Society of British Artists and won medals from the Society of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce.

During the 1820s, Hilditch toured Warwickshire, Shropshire and North Wales during the summer months on painting trips. From the early 1830s he returned to painting Thames scenes and still lives of freshwater fish. In 1835 he travelled to France and painted view of Paris and its environs, including Versailles. This was followed by two further trips to the Continent - northern Italy in 1838 and a tour of Germany a year later accompanied by his wife Mary. Nearly all the works he produced focus on riverside views, contemporary Arcadian scenes examining the relationship between people and the landscape. Inspired by Constable's principle of the chiaroscuro of nature, each work is a meticulous study of the effects of light.

Hilditch was also a pioneer of photography. In 1852 he exhibited 20 prints at the Society of Arts in London. The compositions and subjects share many similarities with his paintings, but, unlike many of his contemporaries who used photographs as preparatory studies, the paintings preceded the photographs. Examples of Hilditch's prints can be found in the Richmond Local Studies Collection.

Constructed in 1827 to a design by William Tierney Clarke, Hammersmith Bridge was the first suspension bridge in London. It was replaced sixty years later with the present bridge constructed by architect Sir Joseph Bazalgette (1818-1891), who was knighted in 1874.

This rare view, dated 1886, is said to be the only known view of the temporary bridge which spanned the river during the construction of the second suspension bridge. The painting is attributed to Archibald Webb, a London painter of coastal and fishing scenes in England and France. As Archibald was born at the start of the 19th century and exhibited his last recorded work (at the British Institute) in 1866, it is more likely that this one is by the hand of his son James Webb (b.1825).

Richmond riverside from the Middlesex bank. Artist: Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Oil on canvass.

This exquisite painting is one of only three views painted by Corot during his sole trip to England, when he visited London for the Universal Exhibition in 1862. It depicts the Richmond riverside from the Middlesex bank and includes Hotham and Heron Houses with the boathouses.

Corot painted portraits which were completely unknown during his lifetime, but are now considered some of his greatest works. He was renowned for his landscapes, varying from sketches from nature, which he later worked up into larger compositions, to idealised Arcadian scenes peopled by nymphs and shepherds. Corot’s late works subsequently had an enormous impact on the French Impressionists Pissarro and Monet and later Cėzanne.

This oil was received by the Government in satisfaction of inheritance tax arising in connection with the death of Sir Anthony Hornby, former Chairman of the National Arts Collections Fund and Trustee of the Wallace Collection. He and his wife also left The Bather by Renoir to the National Gallery and a work by Braque to the Tate.

Artist: Frederic Leighton

Leighton is one of the greatest English artists of the nineteenth century. Making a sensational debut at the Royal Academy in 1855 with Cimabue’s Madonna being carried through the Street of Florence; his treatment of the nude and classical mythological scenes ensured that by 1878, he was president of the Royal Academy.