The Gardens at Kew 1759
Oil on canvas | 75.6 x 102.1 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 403517
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Frederick, Prince of Wales acquired the White House in Kew in 1730 and had it remodeled by William Kent in 1731-5. After his death in 1751, his widow, Augusta, Dowager Princess of Wales, created a nine-acre botanical garden, advised by her friend and noted botanist, the 3rd Earl of Bute (1713-92); this garden survives as a small part of the much larger Royal Botanical Gardens. Princess Augusta also employed William Chambers (1723-96) during the period 1757-63 to build a range of garden temples and to teach her son, the future George III the principles of architecture. This is one of a set of five views (OM 1062-6, 403514-9) of her evolving gardens by Schalch, a Swiss painter who spent a decade working in England (1754-63), painted for the Princess; a receipt of 1759 puts the price at 200 guineas for four of them. This view of the the gardens and lake at Kew shows a white Chinese-style wooden bridge with a small white classical temple with a path in the distance. On the water in the foreground appear two swans; on the left in foreground two labourers cutting grass in the evening sunlight.
Provenance
Commissioned by Augusta, Princess of Wales, in 1759; recorded in store at Carlton House in 1816 (no 225) and 1819 (no 379)
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Creator(s)
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
75.6 x 102.1 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
90.9 x 118.9 x 7.6 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
A View at Frogmore, previously called