(British, 1784-1849)

fortress behind figures in boats, circa 1828, graphite on paper, sight 4-7/8 x 5-1/4 in.; modern black frame, 12-3/4 x 12-1/2 x 1-1/2 in.

Note: Peter De Wint, one of the chief British landscape watercolorists, apprenticed under John Raphael Smith, the mezzotint engraver and portrait painter. De Wint exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time in 1807 and entered its schools two years later. Many of his works are set in Lincolnshire and Wales. De Wint went abroad only once in his life, visiting Normandy in 1828 and this study is from a sketchbook kept during that tour. It is a waterfront scene showing coastal boats, sailors and peasant women before the medieval, turreted gates of an unidentified Norman port, with a castle and church with tower on the heights beyond; on the reverse of the sheet is a pencil sketch of a river view.