The Garden at Buscot Rectory, Oxfordshire
Alfred William Parsons (1847 - 1920)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
8 Aug 1882
Materials
Pen and ink on paper
Measurements
115 x 170 mm
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1287107
Summary
Pen and ink drawing on paper, The Garden at Buscot Rectory, Oxfordshire, by Alfred William Parsons RA (Beckington 1847 - Broadway 1920), inscribed "Buscot Rectory Aug 8 1882". A small view of Buscot Rectory from bottom of the garden path.
Full description
Pen and ink drawing, The Garden at Buscot Rectory, Oxfordshire, by Alfred William Parsons RA (Beckington 1847 - Broadway 1920), inscribed "Buscot Rectory Aug 8 1882". Through his friend the illustrator Francis David Millet, in the late 1880s Parsons was associated with what has become known as the 'Broadway Group', an informal gathering of artists and writers. It included Millet's fellow-illustrator for Harper's Monthly Magazine Edwin Austin Abbey, John Singer Sargent, Lawrence Alma Tadema, Henry James and Edmund Gosse. He travelled extensively in Britain, Europe, North America and Japan, sketching the landscapes, pastoral scenes, gardens and plants in which he specialised in his paintings and watercolours. Among his best work are the 132 watercolours of her roses commissioned by Ellen Ann Willmott for her book The Genus Rosa, published in parts 1910-14, which are now owned by the Royal Horticultural Society. This drawing is almost certainly from a sketch book, drawn on the spot as the inscription suggests. Its rapid execution is in marked contrast to the artist's highly finished signed ink drawings. Buscot Rectory, now in Oxfordshire but formerly part of Berkshire, is a stone house built in 1703. It is now known as The Old Parsonage and is a National Trust property. Parsons designed gardens as well as drawing and painting them. In 1895 he made deigns for The Court Farm, Broadway. From 1898 to 1914 he was in partnership with Captain Walter Croker Saint-Ives Partridge as a garden designer. Their largest scheme was Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire 1899-1905. They were consulted by Theodore Mander and Parsons visited Wighwick Manor 25-26 August 1899, although the extent of their involvement is uncertain.
Provenance
Abbot and Holder, London, January 1989; from whom purchased and Gifted by Stephen Ponder in 2018.
Marks and inscriptions
Buscot Rectory - Aug 8,1882 (signed bottom left)
Makers and roles
Alfred William Parsons (1847 - 1920), artist