George Pyne (1800 – 1884)
Brasenose College Quadrangle
Watercolour
16 x 22 cm
Signed and dated to lower right
A well-executed watercolour of the quadrangle at Brasenose College, Oxford. Pyne expertly depicts the main gate with the Radcliffe Camera behind and the spire of the University Church of St Mary shrouded in a light mist. He also intriguingly captures the smaller details of the scene: a scholar in academic dress wandering around the periphery of the quad, the shadows and relief of a statue which no longer stands in the Old Court, the reflections in the old single-glazed windows. In doing so, he captures the unique charm of Brasenose College on this sunny day in the late 19th Century.
George Pyne was related to two founders of the Society of Painters in Watercolours – William Henry Pyne was his father, and John Varley his father-in-law. Pyne trained as an architectural draughtsman and lived in Oxford from the 1850s until his death in 1884, specialising in views of the city and its colleges. His Oxford pictures are both architecturally-minded and romantically creative, often combining intensely detailed depictions of college buildings with imagined pedestrian scenes.
Pyne was also noted for his views of Cambridge and Eton, and for his drawing manuals ‘A Rudimentary and Practical Treatise on Perspective for Beginners’ (1848) and ‘Practical Rules on Drawing for the Operative Builder, and Young Student in Architecture’ (1854); the latter texts offer an insight into his method of depicting architecture and its surroundings.
Condition: Generally very good, a couple of spots to the sky.
If you would like to know more, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056.
