SAMUEL PROUT, O.W.S. (BRITISH 1783-1852), A FIGURE SEATED BESIDE MAEN ROCK, CORNWALL
SAMUEL PROUT, O.W.S. (BRITISH 1783-1852)A FIGURE SEATED BESIDE MAEN ROCK, CORNWALLPencil and brown wash on buff coloured paperInscribed with title (lower left)28.5 x 41cm (11 x 16in.)Provenance:John Spink, LondonThe collection of Russell WorbyLiterature:J. Spink and T. Wilcox, Samuel Prout: A Grand Tour in Watercolour, 2017, ill. pl. 2As a young man, Prout was fascinated with natural rock features and standing stones that proliferated Devon and Cornwall. Due to their mutual interest in these landmarks, Prout was introduced to the antiquarian and publisher John Britton, who launched Prout's career. The eighteenth-century historian William Borlase believed the stone, propped on two others with a gap underneath tall enough for a man to pass through, was created artificially as an object of primitive ritual, an idea Britton discounted. Prout's inclusion of the seated figure, so tiny in relation to the enormous rock underlines thesheer impracticality of the suggestion.
[ translate ]SAMUEL PROUT, O.W.S. (BRITISH 1783-1852)A FIGURE SEATED BESIDE MAEN ROCK, CORNWALLPencil and brown wash on buff coloured paperInscribed with title (lower left)28.5 x 41cm (11 x 16in.)Provenance:John Spink, LondonThe collection of Russell WorbyLiterature:J. Spink and T. Wilcox, Samuel Prout: A Grand Tour in Watercolour, 2017, ill. pl. 2As a young man, Prout was fascinated with natural rock features and standing stones that proliferated Devon and Cornwall. Due to their mutual interest in these landmarks, Prout was introduced to the antiquarian and publisher John Britton, who launched Prout's career. The eighteenth-century historian William Borlase believed the stone, propped on two others with a gap underneath tall enough for a man to pass through, was created artificially as an object of primitive ritual, an idea Britton discounted. Prout's inclusion of the seated figure, so tiny in relation to the enormous rock underlines thesheer impracticality of the suggestion.
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