A Fisherman on the Banks of a River, a Church Tower in the Distance

c. 1825–26

While this scene on a riverbank offers up a vivid range of sense impressions—pale sky, blue haze at the horizon, soft air, a sighing breeze—it is also tinged with nostalgia, perhaps best embodied by the fisherman in the right foreground. His gaze may be directed at the hoped-for fish at the end of his line, or at the tall tree on the opposite bank, which rises up as a tour de force of watercolor handling and mark-making. Bonington sometimes deployed materials and techniques from oil painting, which watercolor purists would have rejected as alien to the medium, to add to the depth and complexity of his compositions. Here, opaque gouache lends greater solidity and weight to some of the landscape elements.

Medium	watercolor and gouache, with traces of charcoal, with scraping, on cream wove paper
Dimensions	6 7/8 x 9 5/16 in. (17.5 x 23.6 cm)
Object Number	2007.8.5
Acquisition	Gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007
Status	Off View

Image Caption

Richard Parkes Bonington, A Fisherman on the Banks of a River, a Church Tower in the Distance, c. 1825–26, watercolor and gouache, with traces of charcoal, with scraping, on cream wove paper. Clark Art Institute, gift of the Manton Art Foundation in memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, 2007.8.5

Select Bibliography

. Festival of Britain Exhibition. Nottingham Castle Museum. 1951. . . Thomas Agnew & Sons. 1951. . Bonington. July 22-August 5, 1961. King's Lynn: The Guildhall of St. George. 1961. Thomas Agnew & Sons. Pictures, Watercolours, and Drawings by R.P. Bonington. February 26 - March 17, 1962. Thomas Agnew & Sons. 1962. . R.P. Bonington 1802-1828. Nottingham Castle Museum, Nottingham, England, April 10-May 22, 1965; Norwich, England, May 29-June; Southampton, England, June 26-July 17, 1965. The Arts Council of Great Britain. 1965. Leger Galleries. English Watercolours. November 30-December 23, 1983. London: Leger Galleries. 1983. Noon, Patrick. Richard Parkes Bonington "On the Pleasure of Painting". Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, November 13, 1991-January 19, 1992; Petit Palais, Paris, March 5-May 17, 1992. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art. 1991. Wilton, Andrew and Anne Lyles. The Great Age of British Watercolours 1750-1880. Royal Academy, London, January 15-April 11, 1993; National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 9-July 25, 1993. London: Royal Academy of Arts; Munich: Prestel-Verlag. 1993. Wilton, Andrew. Turner, Girtin and Bonington: A New York Private Collection, Paintings, Watercolours, and Drawings. New York: Privately Published, 2001. Cormack, Malcolm. Bonington. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. 1989. Hardie, Martin. Watercolour Painting in Britain. vol. 2: "The Romantic Period". London: Batsford, Ltd. 1967. Spencer, Dr. Marion. R. P. Bonington, 18021828. Exhibition cattalogue. Nottingham, England: Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery, 1963. Posnett, David, introd. Leger: A Century of Art Dealing, 1892-1992. London: The Leger Galleries, 1992. Noon, Patrick. Richard Parkes Bonington: The Complete Paintings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Clarke, Jay, ed. Landscape, Innovation, and Nostalgia: The Manton Collection of British Art. Williamstown, MA: The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2012.

Provenance

Possibly Lewis Brown, sale, Paris, 7 Mar. 1843, lot 25, sold to Odier; Sir Ernest R. Debenham; Dr. H. A. C. Gregory; C. R. N. Routh; Dr. William Brockbank (by 1951); sale, Sotheby’s, London, 11 Nov. 1982, no. 168, sold to Leger Galleries, as agent for Manton; Sir Edwin A. G. Manton, New York (1983–d. 2005); Manton Family Art Foundation (2005–2007, given to the Clark); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007.