A View on the Island of Antigua: the English Barracks and Saint John's Church Seen from the Hospital
Date:
ca. 1775
Materials & Techniques:
Watercolor and black ink over graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 20 1/4 x 29 inches (51.4 x 73.7 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1993.30.78
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
barracks | island | game | hospital | well (structure) | slavery | bed | architectural subject | basket | furniture | public buildings | bench | landscape | soldiers | sky | cacti | fruit | clouds | church
Associated Places:
St. John's Cathedral | Antigua | Antigua and Barbuda | Saint Johns
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27)Paul Mellon's Legacy : A Passion for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05)
Publications:
John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, p. 265, no. 51, pl. 51, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)John Crowley, Imperial landscapes, Britains's global visual culture 1745-1820 , Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2011, pp. 116-18, fig. 139, N8214.5 G7 C76 2011 + (YCBA)Jaubert sale catalogue : A unique series of twenty drawings by that celebrated British artist, Mr. Hearne. . . for the late Right Hon. Lord Lavington : 3 July 1810, Jaubert, July 3, 1810, p. 4, lot 15, Art Sales Catalogues OnlineDavid Morris, Thomas Hearne and His Landscape, Reaktion Books, London, 1989, pp. 9-13, NJ18 H3545 M68 1989 (LC)David Morris, Thomas Hearne, 1744-1817: Watercolours and Drawings, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton, Great Britain, 1985, pp. 24, 37, NJ18 H3545 M67 (LC)Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 2, no. 51, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 95, no. 77, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
In 1771 Thomas Hearne, just out of his apprenticeship to an engraver, began working for Sir Ralph Payne, the recently appointed governor-general of the Leewards, a group of sugar colonies consisting of Antigua, Nevis, St. Christopher’s (now St. Kitts), and Montserrat. Hearne spent three and a half years making working drawings and, after his return to England in 1775, produced twenty large and highly finished watercolors for Payne, of which only eight are now known. This watercolor depicts St. John’s at Antigua, the traditional center of government for the Leewards, where Payne had taken up residence. After a major slave insurrection in Antigua in 1736, the colonial government had petitioned successfully to have a regiment stationed there, but the white West Indians living on the island remained in constant fear both of another slave revolt and of a French attack from nearby Guadeloupe and Martinique. The Center’s watercolor shows the newly built barracks and hospital and the renovated courthouse, as well as members of the 60th Royal American Regiment at exercise, reinforcing the message that Antigua was a well-governed and orderly colonial possession.\n\n Gallery label for An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)