At Nunnery in Cumberland

Joseph Farington

August 20, 1786 · Pen and brown ink, brush and gray wash, over graphite · Drawings and Prints

Farington was a leading landscape draftsman who had trained under Richard Wilson then, as a mature artist, traveled and sketched throughout Britain every summer. Aquatint series based on his designs include "Views of the Lakes in Cumberland and Westmorland" (1789), and "An History of the River Thames" (1794-1796), and helped to form the taste for picturesque landscape. As an academician, Farington’s active networking played an important part in the election of new members, a process detailed in his now famous diary, written between 1798 and 1817. This drawing of the River Croglin near Nunnery, the estate of the Aglionby family is an accomplished example of tinted drawing technique. Graphite under-drawing is overlaid with delicate blue and gray washes, used to define forms which are then detailed in pen and ink, a style derived Italian masters such as Canaletto, who lived in England for nearly a decade from 1746. Farington exhibited this drawing at the Royal Academy in 1790.

Artist

Joseph Farington

Date

August 20, 1786

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and gray wash, over graphite

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, PECO Foundation Gift, 2008