David Cox Snr. O.W.S., (British, 1783-1859)

View of the City of Bath from Beacon Hill

View of the City of Bath from Beacon Hill
watercolour heightened with gum arabic and scratching out
71 x 104cm (27 15/16 x 40 15/16in).

Exhibited
London, Society of Painters in Watercolour, 1820, no. 228.

The present lot, an unusually large example of Cox's work, dates from his visit to Bath in 1819. He had previously visited the city in 1817 to produce a set of watercolours several of which were later etched by Smart and Sutherland. These were published by S. and J. Fuller in 1820 as Six Views of the City of Bath (see N. Solly, Memoir of the Life of David Cox, 1873, pp. 42-43 and 52-53).

In the foreground we see a hive of activity with numerous stonemasons at work constructing a new building from the large blocks of Bath stone which have been hauled up the hill by the horses in the foreground. The cutting of a new road and the expansion of the city leaving three solitary trees in the right of the foreground is contrasted by the dense undergrowth on the left. From this the River Avon wends its way into and the old city which is rendered in meticulous architectural detail with Bath Abbey standing in the centre of the composition.