Peter de Wint Yardley Mill, Lincolnshire

Watercolour over faint traces of pencil with scratching out

26.6 x 54.4 cm sight size

Provenance

With Thomas Agnew & Sons. Ltd, London, no. 14733, cat. no 45;

Sir Robert and Lady Mayer, by descent to the present owner

Exhibited

Agnew’s Galleries, London, 1966, Loan Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Peter de Wint, in aid of Lincoln Cathedral Fabric Maintenance Fund, no. 74

Peter De Wint was the son of a physician who, though born in New York of Dutch immigrant parents, was trained in Holland and London. The artist’s marriage to Harriet Hilton, sister of fellow painter William Hilton, introduced him to their native Lincolnshire where they spent many of their summers and which was to provide him with a lifetime of inspiration. In Harriet de Wint’s Memoir she wrote, ‘at Lincoln and the neighbourhood where he ever found new beauties and new subjects...the long, extensive distances with their ever varying effects. .afforded him unceasing delight’ (H. De Wint, A Short Memoir of the Life of Peter De Wint and William Hilton, R.A.’, privately printed, pp. 84).

This lovely De Wint is a masterly example of his skilled use of the wet brush, creating layers of colour to build up the Lincolnshire landscape. It has not been possible to identify Yardley Mill; it may be that the mill was named after its owner.

This drawing has been in the same family since it was bought by the present owner’s grandmother from Agnew’s in the 1940s.