Samuel Palmer, R.W.S

By descent to Alfred Herbert Palmer (1853-1932), the artist’s son,

sale, London, Christie's, 20 February 1928, lot 97, bt Finberg,

Alexander Joseph Finberg (1866-1939);

with the Cotswold Gallery;

with Agnew's, London,

Private Collection, Cincinnati, by 1988,

with Richard L. Feigen & Co. New York,

from whom acquired by the present owner

London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Samuel Palmer, 1926, no. 97;

New York, Durlacher Brothers, Samuel Palmer, 1949, no. 20;

London, Agnew's, Annual Exhibition of Watercolours, 1979, no. 130;

London, Agnew's, Annual Exhibition of Watercolours, 1980, no. 94;

London, Agnew's, 110^th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, 1983, no. 66;

Denver, The Denver Art Museum, Glorious Nature. British Landscape Painting 1750-1850, 1993-94, no. 83;

West Palm Beach, Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens, Paintings and Drawings by English and French Masters of the 18^th and 19^th Centuries, 1997, unknown number

Ed. R. Lister, The Letters of Samuel Palmer, Oxford 1974, vol. I, p. 115;

R. Lister, The Paintings of Samuel Palmer, London 1985, pl. 38;

R. Lister, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Samuel Palmer, Cambridge 1988, p. 166, no. 267

As the sun sinks low in the western sky, Palmer stands before the mighty Harlech Castle in North Wales. Adopting a low viewpoint, he peers up at the 12^th-century fortress, whose towers and crenellations punctuate the skyline and whose foundations rest on a fearsome escarpment composed of layer upon layer of jagged rock. To the left, a waterfall plunges into a deep pool that is half hidden in shadow, while to the right, the inky blue sea contrasts strongly with the peachy-orange color of the lower sky.

Dating to 1836 and Palmer’s second tour of Wales with his fellow ‘ancient’, Edward Calvert (1799-1883), the drawing is likely to have been at least started on the spot.¹ Certainly it has been created with great energy and intensity and one senses Palmer’s hand working rapidly across the page, whether that be by focusing on the bold strokes of graphite in the foreground that represent three figures lying on the grass, or indeed the white dabs of gouache on the far hillside that denote, in a totally abstract way, a flock of sheep.

This drawing served as the basis for a watercolor entitled Harlech Castle – Twlight, which Palmer exhibited in London at the Society of Painters in Water-Colour in 1843. It also has an interesting provenance, having belonged to Palmer's son, Alfred, and later to A.J. Finberg, a noted art-historian, who wrote widely on British art.²

^1.The ‘Ancients’ were a circle of friends (mainly artists) who were united by an interest in medieval art, the assertion that ancient man was superior to modern and an idolization of William Blake

^2.R. Lister, op. cit., 1843, p. 142, p. 382 (sold, London, Sotheby’s, 15 March 1990, lot 139: £44,000)