Shipping in a Swell
1824–27
Medium
Watercolor over traces of graphite on cream paper
Dimensions
5 x 7 13/16 in. (12.7 x 20 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Culture
British (?)
Department
Robert Lehman Collection
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
Accession Number
1975.1.876
Tags
Art Historical Context
Richard Parkes Bonington's *Shipping in a Sw* (1824–27) captures the dramatic energy of the sea, with ships navigating turbulent waves under a vast sky. This intimate watercolor, measuring just 5 x 7 13/16 inches, showcases Bonington's mastery of maritime scenes, a hallmark of his brief but brilliant career. Born in England but largely active in France, the artist drew inspiration from Romanticism's emphasis on nature's sublime power, blending British landscape traditions with continental influences from painters like Turner and Delacroix. Executed in watercolor over faint graphite traces on ...
About the Artist
Richard Parkes Bonington · 1802–1828
Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828) was a British painter and watercolorist who, despite dying at the age of twenty-five, produced a body of work that had a profound and lasting influence on French and British painting. Born in Arnold, near Nottingham, he moved with his family to Calais and then Paris in 1817, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Antoine-Jean Gros and copied Old Mas...