View of Rouen from St. Catherine’s Hill

Richard Parkes Bonington

1821–22 · Watercolor, pen and brown ink, over graphite · Drawings and Prints

The French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix described the sparkling, jewel-toned watercolors of the British painter Bonington, with whom he shared a Paris studio, as "like diamonds." In this view of Rouen seen from the northeast, broad wet washes evoke the sunlit sky, a dark cathedral soars above the blotted colors of the city's haze, and exquisite touches of a fine brush suggest tiny figures and the masts of distant ships. A version of this view was reproduced in aquatint by Thales Fielding in N.-J. Lefebvre-Duruflé's Excursion sur les côtes et dans les ports de Normandie, published 1823–25.

Artist

Richard Parkes Bonington

Date

1821–22

Medium

Watercolor, pen and brown ink, over graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, David T. Schiff Gift, Harry G. Sperling Fund, and Karen B. Cohen Fund, 1996