Radnorshire Fine Arts Ltd

Description

Knole Park
Pencil and watercolour on paper c1853.
Inscribed 'Knole Park' and signed with initials 'GR' in pencil.
An inscription in ink on an old Colnaghi paper label (once attached to the original frame) reads George Richmond R.A. / Knole Park / Watercolour.
Framed and Glazed.
Provenance. By descent in the Richmond family.
Exhibited P.&D.Colnaghi & Co. Ltd. 14, Old Bond Street, London.

Painter and miniaturist. George Richmond studied at the Royal Academy Schools where he met and formed a lifelong friendship with Samuel Palmer. As a youth he became a disciple of William Blake who had a profound effect on his art. With Palmer and Edward Calvert he formed 'The Ancients', painting visionary works in the manner of Blake. Throughout this time Richmond practised as a miniaturist and this work dates to the end of his 'Ancients' period in 1830. After his marriage in 1831, Richmond concentrated on portraiture, becoming one of the most prolific portraitists of the Victorian period.

The Richmond family occasionally spent their autumn holidays in a house in Sevenoaks, upon the Tonbridge Road, on the edge of the Common, close to the ancient inn 'The White Hart.' The house was immediately opposite Knole Park where George Richmond would sketch the rich colours of autumn leaves and the great variation of trees in the forest wood. His Landscapes are appealing because his prime reason for painting them was to please himself he seldom, if ever exhibited a pure landscape. The result is often a delightful purity and freshness of observation that, unlike much of the work of his mature years, still portrays some feeling for the visual ideals of the Ancients as expressed during the Shoreham years.

On pages 106-111 of the book titled 'The Richmond Papers,' by A.M.W.Stirling. Publ, 1926. William Richmond writes in length of their holidays in Sevenoaks and describes Knole, in the early 50s as a solitary place where one might wander a whole day and not meet a soul . . . an enchanted place, England at its very best.