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Lot Essay
It has been suggested by Alexander Robertson, Curator at the Leeds City Art Gallery, that the present watercolour depicts Adel Woods, Leeds, a wooded area at the end of Meanwood Bec that runs through the city where the Grimshaws would go walking and where Grimshaw painted many of his early landscapes in the 1860s. For a comparable painting of 1862, entitled The Seven Arches, Adel, Leeds, see Atkinson Grimshaw, 1836-1893, An exhibition of paintings arranged by Richard Green and Christopher Wood, London, 1990, no. 1, illustrated in colour).
In the 1860s watercolour painting was important to Grimshaw's development and he experimented with mixed media combining oil and watercolour in a number of his Pre-Raphaelite landscapes. For a similar example on paper see The River Tees, near Barnard Castle, 1868, Atkinson Grimshaw, 1836-1893, London, exhibition catalogue, Ferrers Gallery, 1970, p. 17, illustrated.
1870 marked Grimshaw's final period of adherance to the Pre-Raphaelite love of detail. The present watercolour is a fine example of the artist's close following of Ruskin's visual accuracy. In the 1860s it was the work of William Inchbold, the first real Pre-Raphaelite landscape artist, that drew him close to Ruskin and his minute copying of every leaf and grass in a composition became part of Grimshaw's art. Grimshaw also loooked to William Henry Hunt for accuracy in depiction of nature. His paintings Foxgloves, and A Mossy Glen (Atkinson Grimshaw, Leeds, 1979, exhibition catalgoue, pls. 2 and 6), are obvious sources for the foreground of the present painting.
In the 1860s watercolour painting was important to Grimshaw's development and he experimented with mixed media combining oil and watercolour in a number of his Pre-Raphaelite landscapes. For a similar example on paper see The River Tees, near Barnard Castle, 1868, Atkinson Grimshaw, 1836-1893, London, exhibition catalogue, Ferrers Gallery, 1970, p. 17, illustrated.
1870 marked Grimshaw's final period of adherance to the Pre-Raphaelite love of detail. The present watercolour is a fine example of the artist's close following of Ruskin's visual accuracy. In the 1860s it was the work of William Inchbold, the first real Pre-Raphaelite landscape artist, that drew him close to Ruskin and his minute copying of every leaf and grass in a composition became part of Grimshaw's art. Grimshaw also loooked to William Henry Hunt for accuracy in depiction of nature. His paintings Foxgloves, and A Mossy Glen (Atkinson Grimshaw, Leeds, 1979, exhibition catalgoue, pls. 2 and 6), are obvious sources for the foreground of the present painting.