A watermill on the Seine

Callow moved to Paris in 1829 to work in the studio of Newton Fielding (the younger brother of Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding, see lot 278) where Callow would have met both Delacroix and Boys. Apart from a brief stay in England, to escape the dangers of the Revolution in 1830, Callow stayed in Paris until 1841. By the mid 1830s he had established a reputation with members of the French royal family and the aristocracy, as both a gifted watercolourist and drawing-master.

The present watercolour probably dates from 1835 when Callow undertook his first walking holiday, along the Seine to Le Havre and on to England.