RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (British 1802 - 1828). The Banks of the Seine River, circa 1823 - 1824. Oil on paper laid on ca...

Description

RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (British 1802 - 1828)
The Banks of the Seine River, circa 1823 - 1824
Oil on paper laid on canvas
11 x 19 inches

PROVENANCE:
Comte J. Milleret de Milleret;
Maurice Gobin, Paris, by 1936;
Thence by descent to the previous owner;
Property of a Gentleman

LITERATURE:
Andrew Shirley, Bonington (London, 1941), pp. 58-59, 93, and plate 34, illus.;
Maurice Gobin, R.P. Bonington, 1802-1828 (Paris, 1950), no. 30, illus.

EXHIBITED:
Maurice Gobin, Paris, "Exposition de peintures, aquarelles & dessins par R.P. Bonington, 1802-1828", November 25 - December 20, 1936, no. 38;
Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, "Bonington: Un Romantique Anglais à Paris", 1966, no. 29.

A talented and prolific artist whose career was tragically brief, Bonington was known for his skillful, fluid landscape sketches in oil and watercolor. His father was also an artist who moved their family to Calais in 1817, where the young Richard studied watercolor painting with Louis Francia. In Paris from 1819-22, Bonington joined the studio of Antoine-Jean Gros where he learned to sketch in plein-air. Around this time, Bonington also met Eugène Delacroix, with whom he would later go to London and briefly share a studio in Paris.

In 1823-24, he traveled along the Seine, making many watercolor and oil studies. The present work probably dates to this period. The scene is rapidly and loosely rendered, creating a general impression of the river, landscape, and sky. The simplicity of the composition seems to derive from the work's function as an unfinished study in oil, made to conjur the impression of light falling on a particular place on the banks of the River Seine. Its improvisational character looks forward to later developments in French landscape painting more than it relates to Bonington's known output.



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