George Pyne (1800 – 1884)
The High, Oxford

Watercolour
15 x 21 cm

Signed and dated indiscriminately lower left.

A 19th-century view of the High Street, Oxford. The spire of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin towers over the street; a horse and cart and brightly-dressed pedestrians pass by.

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 good; some spotting and toning to sky.

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