Thomas Christopher Hofland: A Sailing Boat on the River Dart, oil painting on canvas depicting a boat in full said on a river flowing between cliffs and rocks, with a castle to the left side, and with trees, distant buildings, boats, under an opening sky, signed and dated 1801, and in a fine carved giltwood frame. Canvas size: 18” by 24”.
Condition: Excellent, the painting is in very good condition, it has been professionally cleaned and relined, the frame, which is probably the original, has been cleaned and is in equally good condition with no damage or gilding loss. Overall the painting is a typical example of the artist’s oeuvre, and is very much in the genre of landscape painting of the Georgian era.
Thomas Christopher Hofland was born in Worksop, Derbyshire in 1777 and became a student of John Rathbone (1750-1807), he began teaching at Kew but removed to Derby in 1805, where he remained until 1808, after which he returned to London. In 1810 he married Barbara Hoole (née Wreaks) a successful writer of children’s stories. Although he enjoyed a good reputation as a landscape painter, the couple lived principally from her income as a writer. Hofland exhibited some 72 paintings at the Royal Academy, although he never became a member, and consequently was a founder member of the (now Royal) Society of British Artists in 1824, where he exhibited over 100 paintings, and became its second president in 1825. His style in painting sits very much in the mode of Georgian art, and he produced a number of very charming pastoral landscapes from all around England, documenting a world that would in some cases disappear with the advance of the industrial age.
Dimensions:
Height: 59cm (23”)
Width: 74cm (29”)