Carnarvon Castle

Carnarvon Castle
Carnarvon Castle
Carnarvon Castle
The Trustees of the British Museum
title=Credit line
Artist
William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson
Title
Carnarvon Castle
Date
Published 17 July 1775
Medium
Etching and engraving
Dimensions
Metric: Plate: 400 x 538 mm
Imperial: Plate: 15 3/4 x 21 3/16 in.
Accession Number
1860,0114.391
Wilson Online Reference
E27
Description
View of a Norman castle with angled towers in the walls on the right, overlooking a river, with wooded banks opposite on the left and fields in the distance. On the far side of a broad stretch of water, a woman is milking a cow and two other figures are resting on the bank in the foreground.
Provenance
Acquired 1860 at an unidentified sale at Southgate & Barrett through A. E. Evans & Sons, 403 Strand, London
Signature/inscription
Lettered below the image in English and French, continuing 'the Birth Place of Edward II, in South Wales' and 'Richd, Wilson Pinxt Willm, Byrne Sculpt'
Subject
Caernarvon Castle is located on the northern banks of the River Seiont on the Caernarvonshire coast in North Wales, across the Menai Straits from the Island of Anglesey. Its massive ruins offered the traveller in search of the picturesque an impressive reminder of Britain's heroic past. The castle was begun by Edward I in 1284 and his son Edward, the first English Prince of Wales, was born in the great Eagle Tower on 25 April that year.
Versions
See 'Links' tab.
Other impressions are at The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru (4609344 & PE194/b)
Related Paintings
P12 Caernarvon Castle, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
P12A Caernarvon Castle, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
P12C Caernarvon Castle with Anglesea in the Distance, Private Collection
P12D Caernarvon Castle, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
Critical commentary
This print is one of the set, Six Views in North and South Wales, all after Wilson, published by John Boydell in 1775. The others are E22, E28, E29, E30 and E31. Solkin suggested that the present example and others from the series lacking Boydell's publication line may have been commissioned by Wilson before financial difficulties in the mid-1770s constrained him to sell the plates to Boydell.
Bibliography
Booth Notes Doc. 6; Booth Notes Doc. 7; R. Gough, Anecdotes of British Topography, London 1768, p. 603; Edwards 1808, p. 88; Pugh 2013, pp. 1, 21
More Information
An impression belonged to William Lock of Norbury and featured in his sale, Sotheby's London 3-7 May 1821 (619).