Watercolor and gouache over graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 10 3/8 x 15 15/16 inches (26.4 x 40.5 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in artist's hand in pen and brown ink lower right: "Wm Simpson | 1856"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.4.1849
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
genre subject | tools | soldiers | mine
Associated Places:
Crimean Peninsula | Sebastopol | Ukraine
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)
Publications:
Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 197-99, no. 87, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
When the Crimean war broke out between Anglo-French and Russian forces in 1854, William Simpson was sent to the front by the publisher Colnaghi to produce a set of views to satisfy public curiosity about the war. The Bastion du Mât at Sebastopol was the most advanced defensive position of the Russian army and took heavy bombardment from the French. After its capture, Simpson visited the cramped chambers lying off the trenches behind the bastion’s walls, writing of it: “It was dismal in the extreme, and smelt very disagreeably; and however used one may get to dead Russians it is not pleasant to stumble at every step over their festering remains amidst the mazes of a dark and intricate labyrinth.” His watercolor of the site has been somewhat sanitized for popular consumption. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)