View of Bayeux
Medium
Brush and watercolor over graphite
Dimensions
sheet: 10 9/16 x 7 3/4 in. (26.9 x 19.7 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Susan Dwight Bliss, 1966
Accession Number
67.55.8
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the quaint streets of Bayeux, France, through Thomas Shotter Boys' enchanting *View of Bayeux* (1832). This intimate watercolor over graphite captures a lively urban vignette, teeming with human figures, historic buildings, winding streets, and the silhouette of a church steeple piercing the sky. At just 10 9/16 x 7 3/4 inches, it invites visitors to linger on the everyday charm of 19th-century Normandy life. Boys, a masterful British topographical artist and lithographer, excelled in rendering architectural details with precision and atmospheric depth. His technique—graphite sketch...
About the Artist
Thomas Shotter Boys · 1803–1874
Thomas Shotter Boys was born on 2 January 1803 in Pentonville, London, and received his first professional training as an apprentice to the engraver George Cooke. When his apprenticeship concluded he crossed the Channel to Paris, a move that would transform his artistic direction entirely. There he encountered Richard Parkes Bonington, the brilliant English watercolourist whose fresh, luminous ren...