Paul Sandby (1731-1809)
Windsor Castle, looking eastward signed and dated 1803
Watercolour and bodycolour | 38.3 x 53.4 cm (sight) | RCIN 451577
-
A bodycolour drawing of the North Terrace of Windsor Castle from the west, showing the Queen Elizabeth's Gallery and the lantern window. Several groups of figures in costume of the early nineteenth century. Sandby exhibited another version of 'The Terrace of Windsor looking eastward' at the Royal Academy in 1774, and returned to the subject many times throughout his career. He published an aquatint of the subject on 1 September 1776.
A pencil drawing in the Royal Collection shows the same view from further down the terrace (RCIN 914529). Other drawings by Sandby of the same view are RCINs 917855 and 923138, a watercolour in the British Museum (1904,0819.101), a watercolour in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (B1981.25.2689) and a watercolour in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, KT. Several watercolours after Paul Sandby of the same view are also in the Royal Collection (RCINs 914530 and 914532).
Sandby made many watercolours, drawings and bodycolours of the North Terrace, looking both east and west, from the 1760s until his death. The appearance of the terrace, described in contemporary guidebooks as 'the noblest walk in Europe' (Joseph Pote, Les Delices de Windsore, 1763), has changed little since the eighteenth century. The Queen Elizabeth Gallery today houses the Royal Library. The buildings were remodelled by Sir Jeffry Wyatville in the nineteenth century.Provenance
Royal Collection by 1868-72 (Listed in Richard Redgrave's inventory of Windsor Castle, no. 2595)
-
Creator(s)
-
Medium and techniques
Watercolour and bodycolour
Measurements
38.3 x 53.4 cm (sight)
62.8 x 79.3 cm (frame, external)
Other number(s)
RL 14531