Study for 'Pegwell Bay - a Recollection of October 5th 1858'

Artist William Dyce (Aberdeen, Scotland, 1806 - 1864)

Date1857

Mediumwatercolour on paper

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsSight Size: Height: 24.4 cm, Width: 34.4 cm
Frame Size: 42.5 x 53.8 x 3.1cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1990 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the National Art Collections Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Webster Bequest and the Common Good Fund.

CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG009563

Keywords

About MeWilliam Dyce and his family holidayed at Pegwell Bay, on the Kent coast, in 1857 and 1858. This watercolour may have helped Dyce with the composition for the oil painting, finished one year later and entitled 'Pegwell Bay - a Recollection of October 5th 1858' (Tate), which is today generally regarded as his most important work.

In the oil painting Dyce added the elaborately dressed figures of his wife Jane, her two sisters and older son William, providing a narrative element that is absent from the watercolour. Here the only figures present are two women gathering cockles or mussels. This painting is an accurate rendition of a particular scene and a particular moment in time and not, as was the finished oil painting, a subject painting replete with meaning and moral messages.

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In the finished painting located at Tate Britain, the two women gathering shellfish are replaced by members of Dyce's family placed in the foreground.