A Peep in Windsor Forest
John Frederick Kensett (Cheshire, USA 1816 - New York 1873)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1845 - 1845 (exh at RA)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
342 x 435 mm
Place of origin
Windsor
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515593
Caption
Kensett was an American steel-engraver who painted in his spare time. In 1840 he had came to England to further his education and spent time sketching in the environs of Windsor. This subject of this painting became popular after it first attracted the attention of the critics when it was exhibited it at the RA in 1845. The 1847 edition of the London Art Union Annual illustrated another, A Peep at Windsor Castle from St Leonard's, which was acquired by a Mr. S. Taylor, one of the Art Union's prize holders. Kensett was inspired by the Dutch seventeenth-century landscape painters, as well as Titian and Claude, and Constable and Turner, whose pictures he owned.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, A Peep in Windsor Forest, by John Frederick Kensett (Cheshire, Connecticut, USA 1818 – New York 1873), 1845. A view of Windsor Castle, from St Leonards, through arched branches of trees, with a shepherd and sheep in foreground. A small etching of this subject is stuck to back of frame, with a handwritten note: 'John Frederick Kensett born in Cheshire USA 1818, died New York 1873. see ... ... Dictionary'. 'A Peep at Windsor Castle from St Leonards. Exhibited in Royal Academy 1845'. Typewritten note with biography of the artist. Martin Hopkinson has pointed out that this picture was, in fact, exhibited at the British Institution, 1845, no 167, A Peep in Windsor Forest, 1 ft 7 in x 1 ft 5 in.
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
John Frederick Kensett (Cheshire, USA 1816 - New York 1873), artist