At Binsey, near Oxford

1862

watercolour and ink on paper,

31.1 x 53.7 cm

inscribed: G.P.Boyce Sep.1862

P.188

Boyce studied architecture on the Continent. A fortuitous meeting with David COX at Bettws-y-Coed in 1849 encouraged him to take up landscape painting.

From 1851 to 1875 Boyce kept a diary (extracts published in O.W.S. Club Vol.XIX, 1941) which gives us intimate pictures of RUSKIN, MILLAIS, Holman HUNT, William Morris (1834-96), Algernon Swinburne (1837-1909), WHISTLER and, above all, ROSSETTI. The meticulous style of Boyce’s painting was clearly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites.

The Tate exhibition catalogue by Christopher Newall and Judy Egerton quotes Staley’s opinion that this is a very good example of ‘the sense of intimacy’ which Boyce gives his subjects by restricting the space he allows them.

EJ/CB

PROVENANCE: Bought from the artist by J. Stewart Hodgson 1863; Robert Frank; Marquess of Sligo; P&D Colnaghi, from whom purchased by Gallery, April 1958.

EXHIBITIONS: Paris Universal Exhibition, 1867, no.8; OWCS Summer Exhibition, 1864, no.106; George Price Boyce, London, Tate Gallery, 1987, no.35; Victorian Painting, Munich, Neue Pinakothek Museum and Madrid, The Prado, 1993, no.57.

REFERENCES: A. Staley, The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape, 1973, p.109, pl.55b; G. Grigson, Britain Observed, 1975, p.138, pl.99; G. Reynolds, English Watercolours, 1988, pl.110; J. Treuherz, Victorian Paintings, 1993, pp.91-2, pl.61.

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.