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Creator:
Nicholas Pocock, 1740–1821
Title:
The River Avon: with Passing Vessels
Date:
1785
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor and pen and black ink over graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 16 3/8 × 22 1/8 inches (41.6 × 56.2 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed and dated in pen and brown ink, lower left: "NP | 1785"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.4372
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
boats | chimneys | cliffs | clouds | flags | gate | gorges (landforms) | horse (animal) | houses | Landscape | masts | observatory | people | river | road | sailboat | sails | ships | sky | trees | windows
Associated Places:
Avon | Avon Gorge | Bristol | England | United Kingdom
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:14192
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Nicholas Pocock made a specialty of scenes of Bristol, a number of them set in the Avon Gorge, the stretch of the river immediately west of the city. This idyllic scene shows a ship being towed downriver from the city to the Bristol Channel. It passes Hotwells, the complex of buildings seen here on the far side of the river that housed natural hot springs, then in their heyday as a spa. Pocock used a very similar composition for one of a series of eight views of the Avon that he produced in aquatint in the 1780s and 1790s. In 1791 a Bristol sugar merchant, John Pinney, wrote to his son in Germany, “It is very difficult to get a set of Mr. Pocock’s views, but as I have one by me which I purchased some time ago for my new house, I will get them framed and glazed and send them by way of Holland."

Gallery label for Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04)

Spreading Canvas - Eighteenth - Century British Marine Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2016-09-09 - 2016-12-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Roads to Rails - Revolution in British Transport (Yale Center for British Art, 1992-04-15 - 1992-06-28) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Elisabeth Fairman, Roads to rails : revolution in British transport, , New Haven, CT, 1992, p. 20, no. 197, HE243 .F25 1992 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Eleanor Hughes, Spreading Canvas : Eighteenth-Century British Marine Painting, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2016, pp. 62, 71, 241-242, cat. 101, fig. 52 (color detail0, no. 101, ND 1373.G74 S67 2016 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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