St Paul's from the Surrey Side:
Catalogue entry

Catalogue contents

About the catalogue

Full title: St Paul's from the Surrey Side
Artist: Charles-François Daubigny
Inventory number: NG2876
Author: Sarah Herring
Extracted from: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings, Volume 1: The Barbizon School (London, 2019)

Charles‐François Daubigny 1817–1878
NG 2876
St Paul’s from the Surrey Side

Sarah Herring, 2019

Extracted from:
Sarah Herring, The Nineteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2019).

c. 1870–3

Oil on canvas, 44.5 × 81 cm

Signed and dated bottom left in dark blue: Daubigny 1873

Support

The canvas is lined. The following numbers and markings appear on the back: ‘3962’ in black crayon, ‘21.442’ on a label, ‘358’ stencilled, ‘2153’ in crayon and two sets of incised interlocked broken circles, one on the canvas and another on the top stretcher bar. This is the mark of a former owner, Alexander Young.¹

Materials and Technique

The canvas is primed with a pale cream ground, which is confined to the picture plane and does not extend on to the tacking edges. It is likely that the artist applied the ground himself, as was his preference.² This ground is composed of lead white extended with barium sulphate and tinted with a little brown and yellow earth to create a warmer cream tone. The greyish‐cream sky was painted using mixtures of lead white with yellow earth, brown umber, viridian, ivory black, vermilion and French ultramarine. Cobalt blue was added to the stronger blue touches. Daubigny’s preference for ivory black is evident in this painting; it is used in many of his pigment mixtures and for the black outlines of the barges in the foreground. Viridian has also been employed in various colour mixtures, including the sky and the brown paint of the warehouse on the far right side of the painting, where it is combined with vermilion, earth pigments and again ivory black. The thin, dark blue‐green shadows between the posts in the right‐hand corner are made up of a mixture of emerald green and brown earth. The bright orange sack carried by the man in the distance was applied with a stroke of pure cadmium yellow/orange, providing a colourful accent in the dark foreground. The cadmiums were extremely expensive pigments available to artists from the 1840s onwards and have been found only in small quantities on Daubigny’s paintings in the National Gallery collection.

Medium analysis of the paint identified heat‐bodied linseed oil as the binder in a cream‐coloured impasto highlight from the right‐hand side of the composition, underneath the bridge. A little pine resin was also present.³

In general the brushwork throughout is very free and broad, with long single strokes in grey and black defining the boats in the foreground. Many areas of the painting have the appearance of having been painted wet‐in‐wet, suggesting that the artist painted more than one layer in the first sitting. A paint sample from the warehouse on the extreme right‐hand side, viewed in cross‐section, shows several paint layers: first an unevenly applied grey‐brown underlayer above the ground, which contains lead white, earth pigments, viridian and ivory black; then a second, off‐white underlayer containing lead white with yellow and brown earth pigments; and then a final thin brown layer, described above.

**Fig. 1**
Detail from NG 2876 showing the vertical damage lines, and the white sky paint obscuring buildings on the far right. © The National Gallery, London

The sky appears to have been executed in two distinct stages, with a significant time lapse in between. The first campaign consists of a lighter layer, still largely visible, which can be seen to have developed a fine but widespread vertical craquelure pattern. The second campaign consists of broader and darker brushwork, some of it quite haphazardly applied. The pale sky paint is brought around and over the contours of the boats and buildings. A thick whitish paint overlaps the edges of the buildings on the far right (fig. 1) and a touch of dirty pink obscures the top of one of the foreground posts. While Daubigny painted and drew a number of sketches during his visit to London, which he used for studio compositions when back in Paris, the most likely sequence of events in this instance is that he began painting the scene in London in 1870 or 1871 and finished it back in France.⁴ The cracks referred to above are of the type that might typically be associated with rolling of the canvas support, which in all likelihood took place when the painting was transported back to France from England. And after reworking such areas as the sky, the artist added his signature and that year’s date of 1873. This reworking and/or finishing off was almost certainly done in response to a commission from Hector Brame for a view of St Paul’s in 1872 (for which see under Provenance). Both the signature and date are applied in a dark blue colour, which appears black in the signature itself, where it is thickest.

Conservation and Condition

The canvas has been lined. The general appearance of wearing and overpainting seems to be due to original technique, and cracks run through all areas, some of which have been retouched. Small damages in the lower layer of paint along the top edge, possibly sustained during the transportation of the picture from England to France, could have been repainted by Daubigny himself. The varnish appears to be substantially yellowed.

Discussion

In the foreground a row of barges is tethered in front of some warehouses.⁵ Three men clamber among them, one with a load of coal on his back. With one wearing a white shirt streaked with yellow and the other carrying a bright orange sack, they act as bright accents in the gloom. A further accent is provided by the bright red smoke‐belching chimney of the boat close to the foreground. The vantage point is between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge on the south side of the river Thames, looking north from the former towards the latter and St Paul’s Cathedral. Blackfriars Bridge was a new construction, completed in 1869 on the site of the earlier bridge built in 1769. Behind it is the Blackfriars Railway Bridge, built in 1864 for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway. A train is passing over it, invisible but for its plume of smoke. In the background St Paul’s, delicately picked out in pinks and greens, sits prominently left of centre. To the left a further church spire behind waterfront warehouses is almost certainly St Martin, Ludgate, and at the far left can be seen the gas holders of the City of London Gasworks, which were removed at the end of the 1870s and depicted with great clarity in John O’Connor’s view of 1874, The Embankment (fig. 2).⁶ The tall smoking chimney to the right of the gas holders may possibly be associated with the City Flour Mills, which were constructed by James Ponsford in 1850, badly damaged by fire in 1872 and subsequently rebuilt. This mill actually stood on the waterfront, just to the east of Blackfriars Bridge and to the west and south of St Paul’s, but Daubigny has placed it to the west of the bridge. However, an engraving of 1864 showing the construction of the Victoria Embankment also shows a further chimney standing next to the gas holders, which perhaps could be the chimney in NG 2876.⁷ It should be emphasised that in his view Daubigny does not give any real sense of the numerous wharves and warehouses directly in front of St Paul’s, choosing instead to depict such buildings to the west side of the bridge, thereby pushing the gas holders further west, when in fact they were situated much closer to the bridge itself.⁸

The river traffic includes a paddle steamer on the far left. Paddle ~~streamers~~ steamers had been a feature of the river since the 1820s, and by the 1850s and 1860s a large number of separate companies were operating. Steamers belonging to different companies were identifiable by their differently coloured or patterned funnels, and the black funnel with white band of the steamer depicted here could possibly identify it as belonging to the Westminster Steamboat Company, which operated between Old Swan Pier next to Cannon Street and a landing stage at Westminster Bridge, conveying passengers between Waterloo and the City.⁹

**Fig. 2**
John O’Connor, *The Embankment*, 1874. Oil on canvas, 76.5 × 126.5 cm. Museum of London. © Museum of London / Heritage‐Images

Daubigny painted NG 2876 on his third and final visit to London. He first visited the city for a week in July 1865 with Alfred Cadart, when they were looked after by Frederic Lord Leighton, an admirer of Daubigny.¹⁰ Both were also invited to [page 293] [page 294] lunch by Whistler.¹¹ Daubigny was also in London in 1866, the year in which he sent Moonrise to the Royal Academy (exhibition no. 150). The painting was apparently so badly hung, at the top in the east room, that his friends felt that a protest should be made; but the poor hanging was in some way mitigated by its purchase by the artist Henry Tanworth Wells (1828–1903).¹²

**Fig. 3**
Charles‐François Daubigny, *The Thames at Erith*, 1866. Oil on panel, 38 × 67 cm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. © RMN‐Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Tony Querrec

Daubigny’s third visit to the capital, from October 1870 to May 1871, was as a refugee from the Franco‐Prussian war. He briefly lived in Lisle Street, Leicester Square, but by November 1870 had moved to 13 Conning Place, Kensington.¹³ Fellow artists Pissarro and Monet were also staying in London to escape the war, Pissarro in Upper Norwood and Monet near Daubigny in what is now Kensington High Street. Meeting with Monet in November 1870 (according to one version on the banks of the Thames where Monet had set up his easel), Daubigny subsequently introduced him to the gallery owner Paul Durand‐Ruel, who was also taking refuge in London.¹⁴ On this third visit Daubigny was on the Committee that organised the Exhibition for the Benefit of the Distressed Peasantry of France, at the Gallery of the Society of British Artists, which opened on 17 December 1870 .

This painting is unusual not only among the pictures painted by Daubigny during his three London visits, but also among his river landscapes painted in France. His numerous views of French rivers, particularly the Oise and Seine, continued to stress their rural nature without the passenger steamboats, despite the fact that they were by now a common sight.¹⁵ During his visits to London Daubigny also tended to paint more rural views of the Thames downstream at Erith in Kent. The Thames at Erith of 1866 (fig. 3) shares a similar composition to NG 2876, but the view is across a wide‐open expanse of the river.¹⁶ This is not to say that he ignored the new passenger boats. In a further painting of 1866, Boats on the Thames (private collection), the most dominant boat is a sailing ship seen head‐on, but in the background a paddle steamer is distinguishable by its column of smoke curling up into the sky.¹⁷

Daubigny painted one further river view of the city of London, The Thames at London (fig. 4). The view appears also to be from the south bank, further down stream, looking back at what may be Cannon Street Railway Bridge, which opened in 1866, with St Paul’s in the distance. The prominent tower is possibly the Monument, moved somewhat to the left.¹⁸

**Fig. 4**
Charles‐François Daubigny, *The Thames at London*, about 1870–1. Oil on panel, 30.5 × 61 cm. Private collection. © Bonhams Auctioneers

The smog made a great impression on the artist from the moment of his arrival in the city, and in October 1870 he stopped writing a letter to light a candle, saying: ‘It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. So much for the climate. Fog! Visibility less than two paces.’¹⁹ In NG 2876 he has also conveyed the dirty, foggy atmosphere of the city. All the buildings are shrouded in fog. The sky is leaden and heavily painted in creams, beiges, greys and dirty pinks. Smoke comes from the train, the chimney on the left and the boats on the river, and appears to mingle with the clouds. But compared with [page 295] the middle ground and background, the foreground barges are painted with a comparative clarity and defined strongly with blacks and greys.

Aside from his difficulties with the weather, Daubigny was not impressed by British painting. On 2 November 1870 he wrote to an anonymous recipient of his horror: What terrible painting modern English painting is! They would have real need of our influence. Next to them, Gérome and Bougereau have the airs of realists. How would Courbet, Millet, Ribot and Bonvin look! I think that Durand‐Ruel has much to do in order to change their taste. If they paint fruit or flowers, they have the appearance of being of glass and sugar. The landscapes are made out of caterpillars, or have the air of being executed out of hair. The figures look like cardboard cut‐outs. They have, however, their museums and their very worthy old masters.²⁰

Provenance

NG 2876 was commissioned by the dealer Hector Brame (1831–1899) in 1872 for 2,500 francs, as is recorded in Daubigny’s second account book, ‘Livre de comptabilité illustré 1871–3’: ‘Comte de Brame. Tableaux commandés par Mr Brame’ as ‘Saint‐Paul sur la Tamise 2500 payé’ (fig. 5);²¹ Brame’s sale, 29 January 1874, lot 22, bought Brame (either the painting was bought in or it was purchased by his son, Hector‐Gustave [1866–1936], who succeeded him);²² with Buck and Reid Gallery, 179 Bond Street, London, in autumn 1887, where it was exhibited;²³ in the collection of Alexander Young (1828–1907) by 1896;²⁴ acquired with the Young Collection by Agnew’s in 1906; Young sale, Christie’s, 4 July 1910, lot 294, bought Obach for £630; presented to the National Gallery ‘in the name of Mr John Charles Joseph Drucker as a mark of respect from a few of his friends’, 1912. Drucker (1862–1944) was a Dutch collector who, with his wife, donated a collection of Dutch nineteenth‐century art to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He also gave in 1910 a number of pictures to the National Gallery, including paintings by Israëls, Bosboom and the Maris brothers. The gift was discussed at the Board Meeting of 11 June 1912, where a letter of 8 June from the art collector Thomas J. Barratt (1841–1914) was read, offering on behalf of a few friends to present the painting. In a further letter of 11 June Barratt proposes the inscription and states that he has instructed Colnaghi to send the picture to the Gallery;²⁵ As Colnaghi had joined forces with Obach from 1911 to become Colnaghi and Obach, it is likely that the painting had remained with Obach since its purchase in 1910; for a time NG 2876 was at the Tate Gallery, from where it was transferred in 1956.

Exhibitions

London 1874 (41, St Paul’s, from the Surrey Side); exhibited at Buck and Reid in 1887, probably as part of ~~A Collection of Pictures by~~ A Collection of Pictures by Corot, Rousseau, Daubigny, M. Maris, J. Maris and Others ;²⁶ London 1896 (59); London 1908a (perhaps 9, View of St Paul’s from the River); London 1930 (68); London 1950 (19); London 1957 (59); London 1977 (80); Portsmouth, Nottingham, Stoke‐on‐Trent, Barnard Castle and London 1980 (16); London 1987 (162); Truro, Bedford and Stoke‐on‐Trent 2003–4 (not numbered); St Petersburg, New York and Baltimore 2005–6 (6); London 2009 (40 in accompanying book); Paris, London and Philadelphia 2014–15 (10, London); Cincinnati, Edinburgh and Amsterdam 2016–17 (fig. 45 in accompanying checklist); London and Paris 2017–18, p. 65. On long‐term loan to the Government Art Collection, 10 Downing Street, London, from August 1964 to April 1977 .

**Fig. 5**
Illustration from a copy of Daubigny’s ‘Livre de comptabilité’, about 1871–3. Paris, Musée d’Orsay, deposited with the Musée du Louvre, Aut. 367‐B‐recto, p. 30. © RMN‐Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Michel Urtado

Literature

Davies and Gould 1970, pp. 43–4; Hellebranth 1976, p. 249, no. 756; House, ‘London in the Art of Monet and Pissarro’, in Warner 1987, p. 77; White, Pilc and Kirby 1998, p. 92; Roy 1999, p. 339; Beaufort 2002, p. 73; House, ‘Visions of the Thames’, in House, Chu and Hardin 2005, pp. 15–37, no. 27; Chu, ‘The Lu(c)re of London: French Artists and Art dealers in the British Capital, 1859–1914’, in ibid. , pp. 39–54, no. 43.

Notes

1 The author is grateful to Jon Whiteley for identifying this mark. (Back to text.)

2 For a discussion of Daubigny’s primings see Herring 2016, esp. pp. 40–4. (Back to text.)

3 These results were reported in White, Pilc and Kirby 1998, p. 92. (Back to text.)

4 M. Beaufort also proposed this sequence in her paper of 2002. Both here and in an email of 28 April 2017 she cites drawings made by Daubigny for The Victoria Embankment under Construction (1866; oil on panel; Moscow, Pushkin Museum; Hellebranth 1976, no. 749) and a further drawing, Construction of the Thames Embankment in 1866, with Cranes and Other Machinery, Waterloo Bridge and the Shot Tower in the Distance (black chalk; London, British Museum) but writes that there do not appear to be any connected with NG 2876. Daubigny’s studio notebook from the London visit is in a private collection. See Fidell‐Beaufort 1981, p. 123. (Back to text.)

5 This side of the river to the west of Blackfriars Bridge was lined with wharves, all of which are marked on Stanford’s Library Map of London and its Suburbs (1862) as follows: Blackfriars Bridge Wharf, Jamaica Wharf, Greystone Lane Wharf, Old Bullstairs Wharf and Old Jamaica Wharf. The warehouses depicted in NG 2876 could belong to any of these. (Back to text.)

6 The gas holders are also seen clearly in the anonymous photograph of about 1875, The Victoria Embankment looking towards St Paul’s, in Stamp 1984, pl. 144. (Back to text.)

7 M. Jackson, The Construction of the Victoria Embankment, Olsen 1976, pl. 93. (Back to text.)

8 Their exact position is marked on Stanford’s Library Map of London and its Suburbs of 1862. (Back to text.)

9 See Bennett 1924, pp. 108–9. (Back to text.)

10 See essay by Richard Ormond, ‘Leighton and his Contemporaries’, in London 1996b, p. 24. Leighton first met Daubigny when he was in Paris in the second half of the 1850s. See also a letter of 27 July 1865 from Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909), published by Lang 1960, p. 126, where he described the artist as being ‘fêted here for a week or so’. This is also quoted in Fidell‐Beaufort and Bailly‐Herzberg 1975, p. 57. (Back to text.)

11 See letter of 16 August 1865 from Whistler to Fantin‐Latour; ‘Maintenant pour les nouvelles – Daubigny avec Cadart ont été ici – j’ai été charmant [–] un diner – Cadart n’a pas pu rester – mais Daubigny a été très bien entretenu – …’. Library of Congress, Pennell‐Whistler Collection (PWC 1/33/1), consulted online at University of Glasgow, The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855–1903, eds Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp; including The Correspondence of Anna McNeill Whistler, 1855–1880, ed. Georgia Toutziari; www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk (accessed 11 October 2018). (Back to text.)

12 Wells was a painter who had recently been admitted to the Academy. For the hanging see Thomson 1890, p. 278. Daubigny exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy in 1867 (no. 205, Thames at Woolwich); 1869 (no. 158, A Landscape on the Banks of the Oise, Setting Sun) and 1870 (no. 1011, On the banks of the Oise). His address for 1867 is given as 62 Sloane Street; that for 1870 is 74 Boulevard‐de‐Clichy, Paris. (Back to text.)

13 Miquel 1975–87, III, p. 697. (Back to text.)

14 See Moreau‐Nélaton 1925, p. 105, for the meeting on the banks of the Thames; for Daubigny also possibly introducing Pissarro to Durand‐Ruel see Robbins, ‘À la conquête de Londres’, in Patry 2014, pp. 134–49, no. 136 (French edn), pp. 170–93, no. 180 (English edn). For other accounts see House 1978, p. 636. House also discusses Daubigny’s contacts while in London during this visit, based on an unpublished address book (p. 641). (Back to text.)

15 For this see Herbert, ‘Industry in the Changing Landscape from Daubigny to Monet’, in Merriman 1982, pp. 139–64, no. 147. A notable exception is the small and freely painted sketch River Boat of about 1860 (oil on board, 21.2 × 45.4 cm; Art Institute of Chicago), in which the prow of Daubigny’s studio boat, Le Botin, is depicted, and in front are the tug that is towing it and a further tug to the left, both of which are belching forth black smoke out of tall chimneys. Hellebranth 1976, no. 675. A related small study (but without the second tug and smoking chimneys), Le Botin en remorque (oil on panel, 15.5 × 24.2 cm) was at Christie’s, London, 16 February 1990, lot 277. The whole is very swiftly painted, suggesting that Daubigny dashed it off while being towed. In spirit it is similar to his drawings and prints of Le Botin, such as those made for Le Voyage en bateau. In The Steam Boats (Beware of the Steam Boats) (1859/9; Paris, Louvre) he shows his own boat at the mercy of the wake caused by the steam boats on the river. (Back to text.)

16 Hellebranth 1976, no. 746. (Back to text.)

17 Ibid. , no. 750. (Back to text.)

18 Ibid. , no. 759. Sale, Bonhams, 20 February 2019, lot 35. It is illustrated in Laran 1913 who notes ‘… this beautiful stormy sky, filled with smoke in movement …’ (‘… ce beau ciel orageux chargé de fumées mouvantes …’), pp. 99–100. Daubigny also painted the aforementioned The Victoria Embankment under Construction (1866), an industrial scene looking towards Westminster. (Back to text.)

19 ‘Je suis forcé d’interrompre votre lettre pour allumer une bougie: il est 11 heures du matin. Voilà pour le climat. Brouillard à ne pas voir à deux pas’. Letter of 15 October 1870 to Rochenoire, quoted in Moreau‐Nélaton 1925, p. 102. (Back to text.)

20 ‘Quelle affreuse peinture que la peinture moderne anglaise! Ils auraient bien besoin de notre influence. Gérome et Bouguereau ont des airs de réalistes à côté d’eux. Que seraient Courbet, Millet, Ribot et Bonvin? Je crois que Durand‐Ruel a bien à faire avant de changer le goût. S’ils peignent des fruits ou des fleurs, ils ont l’air d’être en verre ou en sucre. Les paysages sont en chenille, ou ont l’air d’être exécutés en cheveux. Les figures sont en fer blanc, Ils ont pourtant, leurs musées et des maîtres anciens très forts’. In the same letter he writes that Durand‐Ruel has ordered three paintings after his studies at Villerville for his new gallery. Quoted in Moreau‐Nélaton 1925, p. 104, and in Miquel 1975–87, III, p. 697. (Back to text.)

21 See Moreau‐Nélaton’s copy of this account book, which is held in the Cabinet des Dessins in the Louvre (actually collection Musée d’Orsay: de Chillaz 1997, Aut.367b, côte AR16 1866–77). The reference to the commission from Brame is also noted by Kelly in ‘Daubigny et Monet: le paysage de rivière, un produit commercial’, in Amic 2013, pp. 35–41, esp. pp. 39 and 296, note 30. He concludes that Daubigny must have painted the picture from memory (with the help of sketches) back in Paris in 1873, but technical examination of the painting (for which see above) points to the reworking of a picture probably started in 1870 or 1871. While Daubigny’s account book gives the artist’s recording of commissions or sales, with dates, it does not indicate when the pictures were actually painted. In this case it is probable that Brame commissioned a view of London in 1872 (which Daubigny recorded specifically as a view of St Paul’s), and Daubigny used an existing work, which he reworked in the studio. (Back to text.)

22 Catalogue consulted in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. For Brame see Yeide 1998, pp. 40–7. (Back to text.)

23 See note in The Art Journal, 1887, p. 351: ‘Daubigny in England: – Messrs Buck and Reid have an interesting Daubigny – a picture of the Thames, with coal barges in the foreground and St. Paul’s in the distance. That such a view has been undertaken by Englishmen makes its treatment by one of the great men of the French school all the more interesting. Daubigny, in this case, was dealing with quite new matter, and with a composition and atmospheric conditions to which he could apply no ready‐made formula of his art. Yet he has secured the main truths of the aspect of London, and has invested the view with all the broad romantic poetry of his school and his day.’ Buck and Reid were a gallery and print publisher, active in the 1880s and 1890s. The principal was George Robert Reid, son of Keeper of Prints at the British Museum George William Reid (1819–1887). Buck and Reid got into difficulties in 1893, and from 1895 George Reid worked for Van Wisselingh’s gallery in London, running the business from 1912 (when Van Wisselingh died) until 1916. See Heijbroek and Wouthuysen 1999, p. 71. (Back to text.)

24 For Young see p. 22 in the present volume. (Back to text.)

25 Barratt was himself a collector of note (of British art) and a Deputy Lieutenant of the City, Carpenter and Master of the Barbers’ Company, Chairman of the soap manufacturers A. & F. Pears Ltd, and Fellow of Royal Microscopical and Statistical Societies. See entry by K. Graham in ODNB, IV, pp. 32–3, and on his collection see Grego 1898, pp. 132, 189, 261, 289. (Back to text.)

26 See The Year’s Art, compiled by M.B. Huish and A.C.R. Carter, London 1888, p. 83. No catalogue for this exhibition has been located. (Back to text.)

List of archive references cited

Washington, DC, Library of Congress, Pennell‐Whistler Collection, PWC 1/33/1: Whistler, letter to Fantin‐Latour, 16 August 1865

List of references cited

Amic 2013: Amic, Sylvain, Eblouissants Reflets: 100 chefs‐d’oeuvre impressionnistes (exh. cat. Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Rouen), Rouen 2013
Art Journal 1887: The Art Journal, 1887, 351
Beaufort 2002: Beaufort, Madeleine, ‘Hasty Departures for London by French Artists in 1870: Daubigny, Monet, Pissarro and some Compatriots’, in Le départ à l’époque victorienne: Actes de la journée d’études tenue à Metz le 22 mars 2002, Metz 2002
Bennett 1924: Bennett, Alfred Rosling, London and Londoners in the 1850s and 1860s, London 1924
Chu 2005: Chu, Petra ten‐Doesschate, ‘The Lu(c)re of London: French Artists and Art dealers in the British Capital, 1859–1914’, in Monet’s London: Artists’ Reflections on the Thames 1859–1914, John House, Petra ten‐Doesschate Chu and Jennifer Hardin (exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, Florida; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art), St Petersburg and Ghent 2005, 39–54
Davies and Gould 1970: Davies, Martin, revised by Cecil Gould, National Gallery Catalogues: French School Early 19th Century, Impressionists, Post‐Impressionists, etc., London 1970
De Chillaz 1997: de Chillaz, Valentine, Inventaire général des autographes. Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Paris 1997
Dumas 1996: Dumas, Ann, Degas as a Collector (exh. cat. National Gallery, London), London 1996
Egerton 1998: Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School, London 1998
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Fidell‐Beaufort and Bailly‐Herzberg 1975: Fidell‐Beaufort, Madeleine and Jeanine Bailly‐Herzberg, Daubigny. La vie et l’oeuvre, Paris 1975
Graham 2004: Graham, K., in ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), Oxford 2004, IV, 32–3
Grego 1898: Grego, Joseph, ‘The Art Collection at “Bell Moor”, the house of Mr. Thomas J. Barratt’, Magazine of Art, January 1898, 132–8 & 189–96 & 261–8 & 289–94
Heijbroek and Wouthuysen 1999: Heijbroek, Jan Frederik and Ester L. Wouthuysen, Portret van een kunsthandel. De firma Van Wisselingh en zijn compagnons 1838–heden (exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Zwolle 1999
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Herbert 1982: Herbert, Robert L., ‘Industry in the Changing Landscape from Daubigny to Monet’, in French Cities in the Nineteenth Century, ed. John M. Merriman, London 1982, 139–64
Herring 2016: Herring, Sarah, Hayley Tomlinson, Ashok Roy, Gabriella Macaro and David Peggie, ‘A Critical Reassessment of Six Landscape Paintings by Charles‐François Daubigny belonging to the National Gallery’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 2016, 37, 38–59
Herring and Mazzotta 2009: Herring, Sarah and Antonio Mazzotta, Corot to Monet: A Fresh Look at Landscape from the Collection (exh. cat. National Gallery, London), London 2009
House 1978: House, John, ‘New Material on Monet and Pissarro in London in 1870–71’, Burlington Magazine, October 1978, 120, 907, 636–42
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House 2005: House, John, ‘Visions of the Thames’, in Monet’s London: Artists’ Reflections on the Thames 1859–1914, John House, Petra ten‐Doesschate Chu and Jennifer Hardin (exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, Florida; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art), St Petersburg and Ghent 2005, 15–37
House, Chu and Hardin 2005: House, John, Petra ten‐Doesschate Chu and Jennifer Hardin, Monet’s London: Artists’ Reflections on the Thames 1859–1914 (exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, St Petersburg, Florida; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art), St Petersburg and Ghent 2005
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Jackson 1976: Jackson, M., The Construction of the Victoria Embankment, Olsen 1976
Kelly 2013: Kelly, S., ‘Daubigny et Monet: le paysage de rivière, un produit commercial’, in Eblouissants Reflets: 100 chefs‐d’oeuvre impressionnistes, Sylvain Amic (exh. cat. Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Rouen), Rouen 2013, 35–41
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Laran 1913: Laran, Jean, Daubigny, Paris 1913
Merriman 1982: Merriman, John M., ed., French Cities in the Nineteenth Century, London 1982
Miquel 1975–87: Miquel, Pierre, Le Paysage français au XIXe siècle 1824–1874. L’Ecole de la nature (I–III: Maurs‐la‐Jolie (1975); IV: Le paysge français au XIXe siècle, 1840–1900 (1985); V: Paysage et Société 1800–1900 (1985); VI: L’Art et L’Argent, 1800–1900 (1987)), 1975–87, I–III
Moreau‐Nélaton 1925: Moreau‐Nélaton, Etienne, Daubigny raconté par lui‐même, Paris 1925
ODNB 2004: ODNB (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), http://www.oxforddnb.com, online edn, Oxford 2004–
Ormond 1966: Ormond, Richard, ‘Leighton and his Contemporaries’, in Degas as a Collector, Ann Dumas (exh. cat. National Gallery, London), London 1996, 24
Patry 2014: Patry, Sylvie, Christopher Riopelle, Joseph J. Rishel, Anne Robbins and Jennifer A. Thompson, Paul Durand‐Ruel. Le Pari de l’Impressionisme (exh. cat. Musée du Luxembourg, Paris; National Gallery, London; Philadelphia Museum of Art)(London edn entitled Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand‐Ruel and the Modern Art Market; Philadelphia edn entitled Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand‐Ruel and the New Painting), New Haven and London 2014
Robbins 2014: Robbins, Daniel, ‘À la conquête de Londres’, in Paul Durand‐Ruel. Le Pari de l’Impressionisme, Sylvie Patry, Christopher Riopelle, Joseph J. Rishel, Anne Robbins and Jennifer A. Thompson (exh. cat. Musée du Luxembourg, Paris; National Gallery, London; Philadelphia Museum of Art)(London edn entitled Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand‐Ruel and the Modern Art Market; Philadelphia edn entitled Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand‐Ruel and the New Painting), New Haven and London 2014, 134–49, no. 136 (French edn) & 170–93 & no. 180 (English edn)
Roy 1999: Roy, Ashok, ‘Barbizon Painters: Tradition and Innovation in Artists’ Materials’, in Barbizon. Malerei der Natur – Natur der Malerei, eds Andreas Burmester, Christoph Heilmann and Michael F. Zimmermann (rev. papers from international symposium held in 1996 (Im Auftrag der Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen, des Doerner Institutes und des Zentralinstitutes für Kunstgeschichte, München)), Munich 1999, 330–42
Stamp 1984: Stamp, Gavin, The Changing Metropolis: Earliest Photographs of London, 1839–1879, Harmondsworth 1984
Thomson 1890: Thomson, David Croal, The Barbizon School of Painters, London and New York 1890 (rev. edn, London 1902)
Warner 1987: Warner, Malcolm, The Image of London: Views by Travellers and Emigrés, 1550–1920 (exh. cat. Barbican Art Gallery, London), London 1987
Whistler 1855–80: University of Glasgow, The Correspondence of Anna McNeill Whistler, 1855–1880, ed. Georgia Toutziari, https://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/, accessed 11 October 2018
Whistler 1855–1903: University of Glasgow, The Correspondence of James McNeill Whistler, 1855–1903, eds Margaret F. MacDonald, Patricia de Montfort and Nigel Thorp, https://www.whistler.arts.gla.ac.uk/, accessed 11 October 2018
White, Pilc and Kirby 1998: White, Raymond, Jennifer Pilc and Jo Kirby, ‘Analyses of Paint Media’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 1998, 19, 74–95
Yeide 1998: Yeide, Nancy, ‘Hector Brame: An Art Dealer in Nineteenth‐Century Paris’, Apollo, March 1998, 40–7

List of exhibitions cited

Cincinnati, Edinburgh and Amsterdam 2016–17: Cincinnati, Taft Museum of Art; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery; Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Inspiring Impressionism: Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh, 2016–17; exhibition in Cincinnati and Amsterdam titled Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: Impressions of Landscape
London 1874: London, Durand‐Ruel, German Gallery, 168 New Bond Street, Eighth Exhibition of the Society of French Artists, 1874
London 1887: London, Buck and Reid, A Collection of Pictures by Corot, Rousseau, Daubigny, M. Maris, J. Maris and Others, 1887
London 1896: London, Royal Academy of Arts, Exhibition of Works by The Old Masters of the British School. With a selection of Works by Deceased French Artists… Winter Exhibition, 1896
London 1908: London, French Gallery, Ninety‐fifth Exhibition: Selected Works by French and Dutch Artists, 1908
London 1930: London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Exhibition of Thames Bridges, 1930
London 1950: London, Wildenstein & Co., A Loan Exhibition of the School of 1830 in France, in aid of the Hertford British Hospital in Paris, 1950
London 1957: London, South London Art Gallery, French Art and Literature, 1957
London 1964–77: London, 10 Downing Street, long‐term loan to the Government Art Collection, August 1964–April 1977
London 1977: London, National Gallery, The Artist’s Eye: Sir Anthony Caro, 1–24 July 1977
London 1987: London, Barbican Art Gallery, The Image of London: Views by Travellers and Emigrés, 1550–1920, 1987
London 1996: London, National Gallery, Degas as a Collector, 1996 (exh. cat.: Dumas 1996)
London 2009: London, National Gallery, Corot to Monet: A Fresh Look at Landscape from the Collection, 2009
London and Paris 2017–18: London, Tate Britain; Paris, Petit Palais, Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870–1904, 2017–18
Paris, London and Philadelphia 2014–15: Paris, Musée du Luxembourg; London, National Gallery; Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Paul Durand‐Ruel: Le Pari de l’Impressionnisme, 9 October 2014–8 February 2015; 4 March–31 May 2015; 18 June–13 September 2015; London edition entitled Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand‐Ruel and the Modern Art Market; Philadelphia edition entitled Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand‐Ruel and the New Painting
Portsmouth, Nottingham, Stoke‐on‐Trent, Barnard Castle and London 1980: Portsmouth, Portsmouth City Museum; Nottingham, Nottingham University Art Gallery; Stoke‐on‐Trent, Stoke City Museum and Art Gallery; Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum; London, National Gallery, The National Gallery Lends: French 19th Century Paintings of Town and Country, 1980
St Petersburg, New York and Baltimore 2005–6: St Petersburg, FL, Museum of Fine Arts; New York, Brooklyn Museum; Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art, Monet’s London: Artists’ Reflections on the Thames 1859–1914, 2005–6
Truro, Bedford and Stoke‐on‐Trent 2003–4: Truro, Royal Cornwall Museum; Bedford, Cecil Higgins Museum; Stoke‐on‐Trent, Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, National Gallery Touring Exhibition – Travelling Companions (Daubigny, St Paul’s from the Surrey Side and Monet, The Thames below Westminster), 2003–4

The Scope and Presentation of the Catalogue

The paintings catalogued in this volume are, for the most part, landscapes dating from the early nineteenth century through to the early 1870s, by mainly French artists working before and overlapping slightly with their successors, the Impressionists.

Swiss, Flemish and Belgian landscapists in the collection have been included. Denis and Cels (the latter painting later in the century) both worked in the oil sketching tradition which, while centred in Italy at the beginning of the century, was international in scope. The Swiss landscape artist Calame also practised oil sketching and his studio works were very much informed by French academic landscape practice. Finally, we thought it appropriate to include the British artist Bonington, who spent much of his short life in France, and was a pivotal figure between the French and British traditions. At the time Judy Egerton published her magisterial catalogue of the British School in 1998, there was no painting by Bonington in the collection to provoke discussion of the cross‐Channel artistic ferment his art initiated. Happily, that lacuna has been filled.

The bulk of the catalogue is made up of artists associated with the Barbizon School, among them Corot – of whom the Gallery holds a substantial collection, from his earliest to his latest work – Daubigny and Rousseau. Despite his being a friend and associate of Corot and Daubigny, the one work in the collection by Honoré‐Victorin Daumier has been excluded, as he was not a landscape artist. On the other hand, it did ~~not not~~ not make sense to split up works by such artists as Corot, Millet and Courbet, and examples of their figurative paintings have been included.

While these artists were regular exhibitors at the Salon, only one painting in the collection, Millet’s The Winnower, was actually shown at a Salon, that of 1848. For the most part the paintings are small in scale, some probably painted with private collectors or the market in mind, others intimate recordings of landscapes, started, and in some ~~cases, completed~~ cases completed, in the open air. As the essay on the history of the collection discusses, the National Gallery, in common with other British institutions around 1900, was hesitant in its collecting of such work, and the first acquisitions came as gifts or bequests from private collections. In fact, the vast majority of the works in this catalogue came to the Gallery as bequests or gifts, meaning that it has been dependent for such works on the generosity of private collectors. Such a lack of proactive purchasing has inevitably resulted in lacunae, notably in works by the Barbizon painters Constant Troyon (1810–1865) and Charles‐Emile Jacque (1813–1894). In recent years oil studies have been purchased. These holdings have been increased significantly by eight studies generously given by John Lishawa in 2019, a gift alas too late to be included in this volume. Neither have we been able to include a newly acquired painting by Bonington, On the Seine – Morning (acquired through HM Government’s Acceptance in Lieu of Inheritance Tax Scheme).

Each entry begins with technical information, the material provided by, and in its presentation, shaped very much by the input of colleagues from the Conservation and Scientific departments, Hayley Tomlinson, Gabriella Macaro, David Peggie and Nelly von Aderkas. The paintings were closely examined out of their frames, both with the naked eye and under magnification, using visible and ultraviolet light. In addition, ~~x‐radiographs~~ X‐radiographs were made of many of the paintings and some works were also examined using infrared reflectography. Infrared reflectography was carried out using the digital infrared scanning camera OSIRIS which contains an indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) sensor. Paint samples obtained from the works were generally examined in cross‐section which allowed for analysis of preparatory layers as well as the identification of pigments and paint layer structures, providing an understanding of the artists’ working methods. Stereo‐microscopy, scanning electron microscope with energy‐dispersive ~~x‐ray~~ X‐ray detection (SEM–EDX), and in some cases Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR‐FTIR), were the main analytical instruments used in the identification of pigments and preparatory layers. In addition, binding media analysis was carried out on samples using gas‐chromatography (GC) or gas‐chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) while information on the dye sources used in the red or yellow lake pigments was obtained using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC).

As the nineteenth century was a period of great evolution in methods of working and materials available, particularly among landscape painters, we decided to complement the material presented in the individual entries with two essays providing more of an overview of developments in the practice and reception of landscape. These are accompanied by an essay detailing the collection of these paintings by the National Gallery itself.

The technical material is followed by discussion of the painting, with provenance and sections on exhibitions and literature. In some entries separate paragraphs are devoted to former owners, particularly in the case of less well‐known individuals and when there is speculation as to the identity of a particular collector. For that reason, such figures as Lucian Freud, who need no introduction, are not dealt with in this way.

About this version

Version 3, generated from files SH_2019__16.xml dated 02/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 02/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Refactored handling of main images for each entry; entries for NG2058, NG2622, NG2632, NG2634, NG2876, NG3296, NG6253, NG6447, NG6603, NG6651-NG6654 and NG6660, and previously-published ‘taster’ entries for NG2625 and NG3237, proofread and corrected.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DWH-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DD5-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style: Herring, Sarah. “NG 2876, St Paul’s from the Surrey Side”. 2019, online version 3, March 2, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DWH-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style: Herring, Sarah (2019) NG 2876, St Paul’s from the Surrey Side. Online version 3, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DWH-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 30 March 2025).
MHRA style: Herring, Sarah, NG 2876, St Paul’s from the Surrey Side (National Gallery, 2019; online version 3, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0DWH-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 30 March 2025]

St Paul's from the Surrey Side:Catalogue entry