Yale Center for British Art

Creator:
Thomas Shotter Boys, 1803–1874, British
Title:
Prague
Date:
ca. 1847
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor, pen and black ink, brown ink, red ink, gouache, graphite, and scraping out on medium, moderately textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 15 1/4 × 10 15/16 inches (38.7 × 27.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Signed in brown ink, lower right: "Thos Boys."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.3.1099
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
working | labor | architectural subject | statue | cityscape | wheelbarrow | genre subject | dome | stairs | figures | steeples | buildings | river | workers | laborers
Associated Places:
Stredoceský | Czech Republic | Prague | Jihoceský | Vltava
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)

Works of Splendor and Imagination - The Exhibition Watercolor 1770-1870 (Yale Center for British Art, 1981-09-16 - 1981-11-22)
Publications:
Jane Bayard, Works of splendor and imagination, The exhibition watercolor, 1770-1870 , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1981, pp. 74-75, pl. 75, ND1928 B39 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 170-171, no. 74, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
As a young man Thomas Shotter Boys knew Richard Parkes Bonington in Paris and developed a similarly bold watercolor style, often making drawings with lithographic reproduction in mind. This view of Prague is based on sketches made around 1842-43 while touring Germany and eastern Europe on a visit to his sister Mary, who had moved to Darmstadt, Germany. Boys scoured the region for picturesque subject matter, perhaps with another publication of lithographs in mind. Although he was critically admired in his early years, the public tired of his work by the 1840s, and on his death in 1874 he left behind no more than £100 in effects. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:30595