Autumn landscape with a colliery

1866–67

Not on view

Boyce here responds to the visual character of a site in northeastern England. In 1864 the artist met Isaac Lowthian Bell, an ironmaster who built an industrial empire in County Durham. Bell bought drawings from Boyce and encouraged the artist to look for the peculiar beauties of a landscape that was being changed by industrialization. Boyce stayed with Bell several times after 1866 and painted in the vicinity. This intriguing composition includes a colliery and pit village, probably within the Durham coalfield. Distant mining operations are carefully described but presented within a landscape that seems serene and largely unaffected. In the foreground, boys pick berries while a woman and dog relax on the grass. Russets, greens and purple-browns weave a visual tapestry from bands of autumnal vegetation and partly overgrown slag heaps. Boyce’s early training as an architect allowed him to accurately describe the colliery while his Pre-Raphaelite sensibility encouraged him to celebrate the surrounding natural beauty.

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Title: Autumn landscape with a colliery
Artist: George Price Boyce (British, London 1826–1897 London)
Date: 1866–67
Medium: Watercolor, gouache (bodycolor), gum
Dimensions: Sheet: 11 1/4 × 16 1/4 in. (28.6 × 41.3 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of Drawings and Prints Gifts, 2023
Object Number: 2023.266
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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View of a colliery at the edge of a town, George Price Boyce British, Watercolor over graphite — View of a colliery at the edge of a town
George Price Boyce
John Ruskin
1865–75

Newcastle at Night from the Rabbit Banks, Gateshead, George Price Boyce British, Watercolor heightened with gouache (bodycolor) and reductive techniques — Newcastle at Night from the Rabbit Banks, Gateshead
George Price Boyce
1864

The Lake of Zug, Joseph Mallord William Turner British, Watercolor and bodycolor (gouache) with reductive techniques over graphite — The Lake of Zug
Joseph Mallord William Turner
1843

Lady Lilith, Dante Gabriel Rossetti British, Watercolor and gouache (bodycolor) — Lady Lilith
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Henry Treffry Dunn
1867

The Entombment, Sir Edward Burne-Jones British, Green, blue, brown and touches of reddish bodycolor, heightened with white gouache (bodycolor) on green paper — The Entombment
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
1879

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