TitleTintagel
Artist
William Trost Richards
(American, 1833 - 1905)
Date1881
MediumWatercolor on paper mounted onto board
DimensionsSheet size: 23 1/16 × 36 7/8 in.
Mat size: 30 1/2 × 44 1/2 in.
SignedSigned at BRC: "W.T. Richards. 1881."
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Bequest of Mrs. William T. Brewster, daughter of the artist, 1952
Object number59-W
Label TextRichards sailed for England in the summer of 1878. During the course of his two year stay he drew constantly and filled countless sketchbooks. The trip was partially funded by commissions he received from Scribner’s and Harpers magazines to produce illustrated articles describing the coast of Cornwall. During the course of his stay abroad Richards was especially drawn to the ruins he discovered at Tintagel Castle on the coast of Cornwall with its Arthurian associations. Richards returned to Tintagel on numerous occasions in the future to create drawings and studies of the wildly sublime scene. He created at least ten watercolors and five oils of the subject. He was probably initially drawn to the subject by Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson’s epic poem Idylls of the King. Following his initial visit he reported in a letter that “it is fabled that King Arthur was born there, and there held his ‘Table Round.’ There is no evidence remaining with the exception of some remains of Roman walls some 500 or 600 years old. The interest of the situation is quite equal to its poetical and historical associations. What is left of the castle and encircling walls is on the brink of a sheer precipice 300 ft. high—one part on what is called the island, the other on the main land—the chasm between them once spanned by a bridge. At the base are many caverns, one especially opens clear through the island and the sea ebbs and flows through it.”
In addition to conveying his fascination with the legend of King Arthur, this picture offers a sense of Richards’ personal exhilaration when encountering the area’s rugged and dramatic topography with its distinctive and complex rock formations, which are open to the full force of the sea.
Collections
- 19th Century Highlights from the Collection
