Code: 10894
Dimensions:
"View in the Kings Road, Chelsea" &
"The Cottage at Strawberry Hill"
(A pair of prints of rustic buildings within the environs of London)
George Isham Parkyns (c.1749-1820) after
Joseph Charles Barrow, F.S.A. (d.1804)
Aquatint
Published by Richmond Blamire (1742-1797), Strand
London 1792
Measure:-
Each 18.7 cm high x 23.5 cm wide (framed)
A fascinating pair of framed prints depicting rustic buildings or cottage orné within the environs of the metropolis. Nicely presented in authentic, very worn and characterful frames with their original "watchtop hangers" to their tops.
Joseph Charles Barrow was the son of Charles Barrow a linseed oil merchant. By 1771 his father had based his family in Fulwell Lodge, West Twickenham. Joseph Charles did not follow his father into the linseed oil business but became an artist. He is noted as exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1789 and 1802. By 1791 he was engaged as an assistant at "Shipley's Drawing School" run by Henry Pars (1734-1806) in the Strand and he opened his own drawing school in 1792 at 12 Furnival's Court, Holborn where twice a week he gave evening classes in drawing. One of his pupils there was John Varley (1787-1842).
Barrow was one of a number of artists engaged by Horace Walpole to produce views of Strawberry Hill.
George Isham Parkyns was from a family of Nottinghamshire nobility (he was the grandson of Sir Thomas Parkyns, Bart. of Bunny Hall, Notts.). He initially joined the Nottinghamshire militia and is sometimes referred to as Captain Parkyns, drawing wherever he found his regiment encamped. He became known for his work on landscapes and gardens, both designing them and portraying them in paintings and engravings. In 1795 he traveled to North America. He assisted with designs for gardens at "Eaglesfield", on the banks of the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia, in 1798. He obtained a letter of introduction (dated 13 May 1800) from Thomas Jefferson for travels in Virginia (although the two men probably never met) and produced prints in aquatint of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. After his return to Britain, in 1804/05 Parkyns helped Henrietta Liston (1751-1828) (who has also traveled to the U.S.A.) to create the celebrated 'American Garden' at her home, Millburn Tower, in Scotland.
The publication for which the two prints here were produced for remains obscure, but a further known aquatinted image of the "Lodge at Holland House", engraved by Parkyns after Barrow, certainly formed part of the same project. Parkyns produced a book entitled "Six designs for improving and embellishing grounds: With sections and explanations. By G.J. Parkyns, Esq" and also aquatints for John Soane's publication "Sketches in Architecture, Containing Plans and Elevations of Cottages, Villas, and Other Useful Buildings with Characteristic Scenery... To Which are Added Six Designs for Imrpoving and Embelleshing of Grounds, with Secions and Explanations by an Amateur". These prints may be drawn from copies of either, but both publications are so rare as to be inaccessible for study here.
Very rare. Not in BM. For "The Cottage at Strawberry Hill" see Orleans House Gallery [LDORL:00243] and Yale, Lewis Walpole Library [Folio 33 30 Copy 4]
