EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1.
Brief Description of item(s)
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2.
Welsh Landscape with Two Women Knitting
Oil on prepared board
34.3 x 49.5 cm
William Dyce (1806 – 1864)
1860
Satisfactory
Context
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Exhibited: Maas Gallery, London, English Romantic Paintings, 18001900, 1965, no. 8; Detroit Institute of Arts and Philadelphia Museum of
Art, Romantic Art in Britain – Paintings and Drawings 1760 – 1860,
1968, no. 191; London, Royal Academy, Jubilee Exhibition, 1976;
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Sunshine and Shadow – The
David Scott Collection of Victorian Paintings, 1991, no. 21
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Literature: Allen Staley, ‘William Dyce and Outdoor Naturalism’,
Burlington Magazine, 1963, pp. 474-75; Allen Staley, The PreRaphaelite Landscape, Oxford, 1973, p. 166, pl. 95b, re-published by
Yale University Press 2005, p.232-3, illustrated p. 233; Marcia Pointon,
William Dyce 1806-1864, 1979, pp. 174, 194, pl. 61; Sotheby’s,
Pictures from the Collection of Sir David and Lady Scott, 2008, pp. 5659; Pictures from the Collection of Sir David and Lady Scott, Finnis
Scott Foundation, 2008, pp. 56-9; Simon Toll, ‘The Eye of the
Collector: The Scott Collection of British Paintings’, Antique Collecting,
43, no.5, October 2008, pp. 20-26, fig.8
3.
Waverley criteria
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The painting meets Waverley criterion 3 in that it relates to a particular
incident in the career of William Dyce – his visit to Llanrwst in the
summer of 1860. More significantly it is a work of outstanding
significance for the study of artists working in north Wales between the
1830s and 1890s.
The painting is a key work in a succession of representations of north
Wales and its people by nineteenth century visiting artists from David
Cox onwards. In particular the painting illustrates the importance of
Snowdonia as a place of resort and inspiration to artists, as well as
reflecting the conventional representation of the people of the region as
individuals still untouched by ‘progress’.
DETAILED CASE
1.
Detailed description of item(s) if more than in Executive summary,
and any comments.
The painting depicts two women knitting on a tightly observed hillside in
Snowdonia with a view of mount Snowdon in the distance. The geological
strata of the rock outcrop on the left is pronounced and apparently taken from
nature. The vegetation comprises grasses and mosses which also indicates
direct observation. The older woman sits on an exposed rock and wears
everyday clothes and an apron, while the standing younger figure wears
Welsh national dress. Both are shown concentrating upon their work and
there seems to be little communication between the two figures.
The tall hat and red cloak of the younger is the ‘revived’ national costume
associated with Wales from the 1830s which was worn on special occasions.
Knitting stockings from scavenged scraps of wool was an occupation of the
home, and one that had largely disappeared by 1860 in the face of
mechanisation. The painting thus tells us about the role of artist tourism in the
celebration of cultures that were under threat, a development abetted by the
growth of railways in the area in the 1830s and 1840s. The painting also
illustrates the importance of natural history to artists working at this time,
especially those who came under the influence of Ruskin and were also
associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The foreground rock and
formation of hills in the middle distance are typical of the area just west of
Conwy and were probably based on drawings Dyce made on his Welsh trip,
now in the Ashmolean and Hamburg Kunstalle. We know from his letters that
the north Wales landscape impressed the artist and he thought it superior to
those areas of the Scottish Highlands with which he was familiar.
Welsh Landscape with two women knitting was painted by William Dyce, a
Scottish artist who played an important role in the formation of public art
education in Britain. He studied in Rome in the 1820s where he was
influenced by the Nazarenes, a group of German painters based in Rome,
who shared a similar interest in early Renaissance art and theology. Dyce
settled in Edinburgh in 1830 where he worked as a portrait painter, and
became increasingly interested in naturalistic landscape painting, especially of
Scottish highland subjects. In 1837 he moved to London and became Head of
the newly established School of Design. He also worked extensively at the
new Palace of Westminster as a fresco painter and on the decoration of high
Anglican churches. During the 1850s he supported the Pre-Raphaelites in
their mission to revive British art, and he adopted their practice of painting on
location. Today Dyce is best known for his ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ landscapes, most
of which were set in Scotland.
Dyce painted a number of landscapes of biblical figures in landscape settings,
most of which are in public collections in the UK. The two that compare with
the Welsh Landscape in terms of their attention to geological formations, are
David in the Wilderness (1859) and The Man of Sorrows (1860), both in the
National Gallery of Scotland. Dyce also produced a small number of
landscapes that present ordinary figures in highly specific local settings, and
as a type, the Welsh Landscape belongs to this category. The Highland
Ferryman (1857) and A Scene in Arran (1858-9) are in Aberdeen Art Gallery,
while Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 (1858-60) is in
the Tate collection. However, Welsh Landscape with two women knitting is
unique in being the only Welsh landscape painted by the artist. For many
years it has been in a private collection and was therefore unseen by the
public.
2.
Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the
item(s).
The painting is unique in the work of Dyce, being the only landscape he
produced following his visit to Llanrwst in Wales in September 1860. Dyce
was very taken with the Conwy valley, describing the rugged wildness of the
scenery as “very much like Perthshire”. He did not do a great deal of
sketching while in north Wales, but wrote “I have got some materials which I
hope to turn to good account…these trips for a change of air always pay. I
made £400 from my trip to Ramsgate two years ago…and I hope to make an
equally good thing out of the Welsh excursion”. This picture was the result,
and was probably painted in the studio on his return to London, on the basis
of sketches made in the region. While the painting shows how deeply the
Welsh countryside engaged his mind, it was also intended to appeal to the
mid-Victorian market, being evocative of a people that lived in close harmony
with nature. It can further be seen as a celebration of Welsh culture in that the
woman on the right wears the tall hat, apron and red cloak adopted by
enthusiasts like Lady Llanover of Welsh traditional dress. In the past Welsh
country women had knitted garments using yarn spun from the scraps of wool
they gathered from hedgerows, but by 1860 the custom was disappearing so
the work can be seen as a commemoration of the people of the region as
individuals still untouched by ‘progress’ as represented, for example, in S
Curnow Vosper’s highly popular Salem of 1908 (Lady Lever Art Gallery). The
two women also represent contrasting types: one is elderly and care-worn,
while the other, in national dress, is young and pretty, so the works could also
be viewed more generally as a meditation on the passage of time.
The painting has a fine, almost enamel-like surface, and is also much brighter
than it appears in reproduction. For example, the sky is a delicate blue with a
white crescent moon. In the carefully observed detail of the costume and
setting the picture is a unique, and arguably the finest, example of a PreRaphaelite Welsh landscape.
The outstanding significance of the painting resides in its regional
significance, especially its importance and interest in the context of artists
working in north Wales between the 1830s and 1890s. Following the
completion of Telford’s new road to Holyhead in 1826, and of the growth of
railways in the area in the 1830s and 1840s, Snowdonia and the Conwy valley
became a popular destination for artists. One of the most dedicated of these
was David Cox, who spent most of his summers at the Royal Oak in Betws-y-
Coed between 1844 and 1856. He brought followers and friends to the area,
and the village of Betws-y-Coed has been described as Britain’s first artists’
colony. Painters who came in the wake of Cox included Benjamin Leader and
Clarence Whaite, as well as others from Liverpool and Manchester. Some
settled permanently in the area and founded the Royal Cambrian Academy in
1882. In addition to pure landscape, these artists also made scenes of Welsh
life, some of them stereotypes like Dyce’s painting, others with a more serious
moral content. Regular artist visitors who were not part of the Betws-y-Coed
group included Pre-Raphaelite-influenced artists such as John Brett, Alfred
William Hunt, William Davis and Dyce.
There are a number of equally geologically specific landscapes by Dyce of
similar date in public collections in the UK. These are David in the Wilderness
(1859) and The Man of Sorrows (1860) in the National Gallery of Scotland, as
well as The Highland Ferryman (1857) and A Scene in Arran (1858-9) in
Aberdeen Art Gallery. Pegwell Bay, Kent – A Recollection of October 5th 1858
(Tate), is an altogether more complex work, being a meditation on time,
explored through an image of a particular moment in time. However, the first
two of these works contain biblical figures which detract from their significance
as representations of specific locations and, with the exception of Pegwell
Bay, all can be described as Scottish scenes. Given the fact that Welsh
Landscape is the sole Welsh painting in Dyce’s oeuvre, and the only work of
its kind by a Pre-Raphaelite artist, it would obviously be highly relevant for
inclusion in a Welsh context.
Alison Smith, Tate Britain
Date 15 October 2009