Lot 1429
THOMAS ROWLANDSON 1756-1827)
THE SITE VISIT, c.1805
Watercolour, mounted on washline support sheet
20 x 30cm.
Literature: Robert Wark, Drawings by Thomas Rowlandson in the Huntington Collection, San Marino (1975), p.62 (a version of the same subject, entitled `A Nobleman Improving his Estate`)
Provenance: Edward Croft-Murray; and thence by descent until 2016
This composition is almost certainly inspired by Stowe and there is ample evidence that Rowlandson visited the famous landscape gardens in Buckinghamshire. The drawing was made by Rowlandson in about 1805 and like many of his most successful compositions was repeated. The drawing also formed the basis for a plate from Rowlandson's The Dance of Death, a moral satire published in 1817.
