Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire on a windy day

Among Cox's favourite subjects were the Derbyshire country houses of Haddon Hall, Bolsover Castle and Hardwick Hall, which he visited in the 1830s. The Elizabethan mansion of Hardwick would have appealed to Cox's romanticism and he executed a notable set of three watercolours of the Picture Gallery at Hardwick Hall (now all at Chatsworth). In the present watercolour, rather than painting the house enlivened by figures in period costume, Cox has chosen to capture its romantic spirit by depicting the ruggedness of nature: the house is viewed from the park below, on a windy day, a lone boy and his dogs dwarfed by the towering trees.