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| Richard Parkes Bonington c1827 by Margaret Sarah Carpenter chalk 44.5 x 33 cm National Portrait Gallery, London |
Born of English parents, Bonington spent much of his short life in France. He studied initially in Calais with Louis Francia before moving to Paris. In 1818 he first met Eugène Delacroix and enrolled in the atelier of Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, where he formed a lasting friendship with Paul Huet, a fellow pupil.
He was one of the stars of the 1824 Paris Salon, where British art was so triumphant, and along with John Constable and Copley Fielding received a gold medal.
Bonington was an inveterate traveller and spent much time exploring the north coast of France. In 1825 he visited London with several French artists, including Delacroix, and in 1826 he travelled through Switzerland to Venice.
He died tragically young from consumption at the age of 26.
Bonington was one of the most important artists of the early nineteenth century, vital to the understanding of French and British art of the Romantic period. His range included history and subject paintings, and landscapes, highly-finished works and sketches, all imbued with a brilliance and sureness of touch which was greatly admired both during and after his lifetime.
For more detailed biographical notes, and for earlier works, see part 1 also.
This is part 2 of a 6-part series on the works of Richard Parkes Bonington:
1824-27 Restes et Fragments d'Architecture du Moyen Age:
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| 1824 Bergues - La Tour du Marché lithograph 19.9 x 13.6 cm (image) Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund |
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| 1824 Caen - Eglise Saint-Sauveur lithograph 26.6 x 20 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund |
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| 1824 Lillebonne - Chateau d'Harcourt lithograph 21.2 x 15.2 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund |
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| 1827 Rouen - Fontaine de la Crosse (after François Alexandre Pernot) lithograph on chine collé 23.2 x 16.3 cm (plate) The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| n.d. Église St. Sauveur, Caën lithograph The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
1824-27 Picturesque Voyages in Old France:
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| 1824 L'Eglise de St. Gervais et St. Protais lithograph 21.4 x 26.5 cm (image) Yale Centre for British Art |
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| 1824 Rue du gros-horloge, Rouen lithograph National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1824 Tour aux Archives a Vernon lithograph 12.1 x 16 cm (image) Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| 1824 Tour du Gros Horloge, Batie Souis la Domination des Anglais en 1417 lithograph 33.3 x 21 cm (image) Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| 1824c Façade St. Jean lithograph (after Nicolas Marie Joseph Chapuy) lithograph 22.1 x 30.3 cm (image) Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund |
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| 1825 Église de l'abbaye de Tournus lithograph The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| 1825 Façade de l'église de Brou lithograph The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| 1825 Ruines du château d'Arlay lithograph The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| 1825 Vue d'une rue des faubourgs de Besançon lithograph The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| 1825 Vue Generale de l'Eglise de l'Abbaye de Tournus lithograph 26 x 33.4 cm (image) Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| 1827 Campos sur les Bords du Rio das Velhas lithograph on chine collé 24.2 x 34.4 cm (image) |
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| 1827 Croix de Moulin-les-Planches lithograph on chine collé paper National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1827 Entrée de la Rade de Rio Janiero lithograph on chine collé 22.6 x 33.8 cm (image) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
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| 1827 Vue Generale des Ruines du Chateau d'Arlay lithograph 16.7 x 21.5 cm (image) Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| c1824 Fish Market oil on canvas 82.2 x 122.6 cm Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven, CT |
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| c1824 Marine graphite and brown wash 13.6 x 20.6 cm Louvre, Paris |
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| c1824 Masts graphite on paper 28.1 x 19 cm The Courtauld Institute of Art, London |
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| c1824 Ruins of the Abbey St Bertin, St Omer, France oil on canvas 59.9 x 48.8 cm Nottingham City Museums & Galleries, UK |
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| c1824 Vessels in a Choppy Sea watercolour with scratching out on medium, cream, slightly textured, wove paper 14 x 21.3 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| 1825 Fishing Boats Moored in an Estuary watercolour on paper The Courtauld, London, (Samuel Courtauld Trust) |
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| 1825 Landscape oil on canvas 34 x 46 cm The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg |
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| 1825 Le Crotoy from the Mouth of the Somme by Newton Limbird Smith Fielding after Bonington aquatint 21.6 x x 29.2 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund |
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| 1825 Rouen Cathedral, Sunrise oil on millboard Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota |
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| 1825 Rouen watercolour 18 x 23.5 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1825 Shipping off the Coast of Kent watercolour on paper Whitworth Art Gallery (University of Manchester), UK |
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| 1825 Studies for Shylock pen and brown ink on thin, slightly textured, cream laid paper 22.9 x 17.7 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| 1825 Studies for Shylock pen and brown ink on thin, slightly textured, cream laid paper 22.9 x 17.7 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| 1825 Study after the Monument of Lord Talbot (d.1617), Earl of Shrewsbury, Westminster Abbey watercolour on paper The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) |
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| 1825 The Arabian Nights watercolour and body-colour with gum varnish on paper 24 x 18.6 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1825 The Great Staircase of a French Château watercolour and body-colour with gum varnish on paper 18.1 x 16.8 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
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| 1825-26 A Forest Path oil 28 x 22.8 cm Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany |
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| 1825-26 Five Studies of a French Pointer graphite with touches of grey wash on wove paper 14 x 20.6 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC |
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| 1825-26 Normandy Sands, France oil on canvas 37 x 52 cm The Higgins Bedford, UK |
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| 1825-26 Quentin Durward and the Disguised Louis XI watercolour and body-colour over graphite 14.6 x 10.8 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Working in Paris, Bonington established new standards for watercolour, and here uses the medium to describe an episode near the start of Sir Walter Scott's "Quentin Durward" (1823). That novel dramatises a fifteenth-century power struggle between Louis XI and Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and proved more popular in France than Britain when first published. The title character, standing here at right, is a young man of good family who travels to Plessisles-Tours in France to seek employment in the king's band of Scottish archers.
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| 1825-26 Shipping in an Estuary, probably near Quilleboeuf watercolour over graphite with scratching out on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper 14.6 x 22.9 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| c1825-26 A Wagon in a Storm watercolour over pencil with touches of gouache and gum arabic 21.8 x 28.2 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Australia |
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| c1825-26 Don Quixote in his Study oil on canvas 40.7 x 33 cm Nottingham City Museums & Galleries, UK |
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| c1825-26 Landscape with a Pond oil on canvas 26 x 34.9 cm The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK |
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| 1825-27 An Estuary in Northern France oil on fibre board 16.7 x 27.9 cm The National Gallery, London |
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| c1825 A Wooded Lane oil on millboard 27.9 x 22.9 cm Yale Centre for British Art |
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| c1825 Anne Page and Slender oil on canvas 45.7 x 37.8 cm The Wallace Collection, London |
One of Bonington’s earliest figure paintings in oil. The subject is taken from Shakespeare’s comedy "The Merry Wives of Windsor."
Slender, a foolish suitor for the hand of Anne Page, stands before her father’s house, reluctant to enter despite her invitation. The poses and costumes of the figures are derived from illustrations in Joseph Strutt’s "A Complete View of the Dress and Habits of the People of England" 1796–1799.
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| c1825 Beach Scene watercolour with scraping out on medium, cream, smooth wove paper 13.7 x 18.1 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection |
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| c1825 Beach Scene with Cart and Horse oil on canvas 19 x 26.5 cm The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) |
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| c1825 Beached Vessels and a Wagon near Trouville oil on canvas 37.1 x 52.4 cm Yale Center for British Art |
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| c1825 Fishing Boats in a Calm, Ships at Anchor oil on board & canvas 36 x 32 cm Sudley House, Liverpool, UK |
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| c1825 Fishing Boats moored in an Estuary graphite and watercolour 17.4 x 24.1 cm The Courtauld Institute of Art, London |
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| c1825 French Coast with Fishermen oil on canvas 64.3 x 96.7 cm Tate, London |
