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Creator:
Paul Sandby, 1731–1809
Title:
The Norman Gate and Deputy Governor's House
Part Of:

Collective Title: Views of Windsor Castle

Date:
ca. 1765
Materials & Techniques:
Gouache on thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 15 1/8 x 21 1/4 inches (38.4 x 54 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed on back in blue chalk upper center: "7 (2)"[...]; on back in graphite lower center: "D"; on back in graphite lower right: "Windsor | The Royal Observatory form the | [...] garden

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.2691
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
architectural subject | castle | children | country house | deputy | garden | gardener | gate | genre subject | governor | Norman | racquets | shade | shuttlecocks | sports | sunflowers | watering can
Associated Places:
England | Europe | United Kingdom | Windsor and Maidenhead | Windsor Castle
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:19913
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From the 1750s to the very last years of his life, Paul Sandby made frequent visits to Windsor. His elder brother, Thomas, served as a draftsman to the Duke of Cumberland in the early 1740s and was appointed Deputy Ranger of Windsor Great Park in 1747. This family connection, paired with a growing public interest in the castle—featured in travel guides—certainly explains why Sandby produced such a considerable number of Windsor views during his career.
After collaborating with his brother on a set of eight engraved views of Windsor Great Park in the mid-1750s, Sandby pushed further his pictorial exploration of the castle, depicting it from every possible vantage point and at various angles. He exhibited eight views of Windsor Castle at the Society of Artists between 1763 and 1768. The present work, made around that time, is part of a set of four views of the castle in gouache in the Paul Mellon Collection (YCBA). Sandby’s Windsor subjects enjoyed great popularity, and he made several copies in gouache, watercolors, and oils, illustrating his versatility in multiple media. One such copy is a later version of the Norman Gate in the Royal Library, dated 1780, and of comparable dimensions (Oppé, 1947, nos. 13, p. 22). As is often the case with these replications, Sandby made some minor changes, such as removing the figures on the right and slightly modifying the garden’s shape. These views, taken altogether, provide vivid and charming architectural records of Windsor and its vicinity. They also suggest the extent to which, as an author quipped, “Windsor was Sandby’s bread and butter” (Robertson, 1987, p. 227).

Stéphane Roy

Baskett, John, Jules David Prown, Duncan Robinson, Brian Allen, and William Reese. Paul Mellon's Legacy: A Passion for British Art. New Haven : Yale Center for British Art , 2007, cat. no. 32.


At the time of his death in 1809, Paul Sandby was deemed "the father of modern landscape painting in water-colours" by the London Review and Literary Journal. Although by the date Sandby's watercolor style seemed old-fashioned and his used of gouache outmoded, he had been very much at the center of the related development of watercolor and landscape painting over the second half of the eighteenth century. Sandby was active in the formation of the Society of Artists in 1760 and eight years later was a founding member of the Royal Academy. Theses organizations offered artists a new sense of status and, through annual exhibitions, provided a new public for their art. That Sandby, a watercolorist trained as a topographer, should be directly and significantly involved in these developments speaks much of his personal prestige and of the rising fortunes of watercolor.
In 1746 Paul's elder brother Thomas became the draftsman for William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, serving with im in the Highlands, the Netherlands, and at Windsor, where Cumberland was appointed Ranger of Windsor Great Park. In 1764 Thomas Sandby became Cumberland's Steward and the Deputy Ranger. From the 1750s Paul was a frequent visitor to his brother at Windsor, and between 1763 and 1768 he exhibited eight views of Windsor Castle at the Society of Artists. One of the two views was possibly shows at the Society of Artists in 1766. The two are part of a set of four Windsor views at the Society of Artists exhibitions that led Paul to repeat the compositions in gouache, in watercolors, and in oils. He exhibited further views of the castle at the Royal Academy in 1774, 1775, and 1801, and he published a set of five Windsor views in aquatint in 1776.

Scott Wilcox

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 159 cat. no. 135.

Mrs Delany & Her Circle (Yale Center for British Art, 2009-09-24 - 2010-01-03) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Crown Pictorial - Art and the British Monarchy (Yale Center for British Art, 1990-12-05 - 1991-02-17) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Art of Paul Sandby (Yale Center for British Art, 1985-04-10 - 1985-06-23) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, pp. 255-256, no. 32, pl. 32, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Tancred Borenius, Catalogue of the pictures and drawings at Harewood House and elsewhere in the collection of the Earl of Harewood, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1936, p. 174, no. 427, N5247 .H27 B67 1936 + Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Christie's sale catalogue : Important English drawings and watercolours and a few prints : 13 July 1965, Christie's, July 13, 1965, p. 48, lot 170, Auction Catalogues (YCBA)

Linda Colley, Crown Pictorial : Art and the British Monarchy : Exhibition Labels, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1990, p. 72, no. 172, N8219 K5 C761 1990 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Linda Colley, Crown Pictorial : Art and the British Monarchy, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1990, p 45, no. 176, N8219 K5 C76 1990 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, Mapping a National Style : topography & landscape at the Yale Center for British Art, , Apollo, vol. 165, April 2007, p. 56, fig. 5, N1 A54 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Adolf Paul Oppé, Drawings of Paul and Thomas Sandby in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle, Phaidon, Oxford, 1947, p. 22, no. 13, pl. 6, NJ18 Sa56 O66 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 2, no. 32, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Jane Roberts, Views of Windsor : Watercolours by Thomas and Paul Sandby from the collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Collection Publications, London, 1995, p. 54, fig. 12.1, NJ18 .Sa56 R65 1995 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Bruce Robertson, Paul Sandby and the Early Development of English Watercolor, Thesis (Ph. D.)--Yale University, , University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, 1987, p. 227, NJ18 Sa56 R64 1987A (YCBA) [YCBA]

The Art of Paul Sandby, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 1985, pp. 62-3, no. 83, NJ18 Sa56 R62 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, pp. 158-9, no. 135, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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