Joshua Cristall RWS (1767-1847) - 1785 Watercolour Resting in the Forest

Description

An early painting by the esteemed watercolourist and President of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours Joshua Cristall (1767-1847). The painting depicts a scene in a forest of travelers at rest. A woman cradles her baby in her cloak and lowers her chin towards its head in a protective and comforting manner. Two men stand behind her, one resting an arm on a nearby tree with his leg outstretched and his foot resting on a log. He directs his gaze up to the sky, possibly anticipating a change in the weather. Presented glazed in a white mount and a burr wood effect frame with gilt-effect inner and outer edges. Inscribed with the signature and date to the verso. On wove.

Condition

The condition is typical for a picture of this age including some discolouration. There is restoration to a small closed tear to the right side of the upper edge and three areas of historic restoration to the centre of the left side. There is a small pinhole to the left side of the tree trunk. There are some very slight scratches to the left and right edges of the frame. Overall well-presented and in good condition.

Size

38.2 x 31.1cm (15" x 12.2")
Framed Size: 52.3 x 45.2cm (20.6" x 17.8")

Artist Biography

Joshua Cristall (1767-1847) was an English painter born at Camborne in Cornwall. For a time he was president of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours, a medium in which he showed a pleasing freedom and simplicity of style.

Cristall's mother shared with and inspired in her son a taste for classic art. His father was Scottish and bitterly opposed to his son's artistic tastes, but his mother secretly aided him in his struggles to study art. He was joined at school in London by his sister Ann Batten Cristall, who was to become a poet and schoolteacher. He was first apprenticed to a china dealer at Rotherhithe and subsequently worked as a china painter at Staffordshire Potteries. Finding such work unfulfilling, he went to London and commenced a life of great privations and hard efforts to study the fine arts. During this period of his life, he reportedly seriously injured his health by trying to live for a year on just potatoes and water. Nonetheless, he persevered in his endeavours and finally gained admission to the school of the Royal Academy where he made rapid progress. He became personally known to the influential art dealer and patron Thomas Monro (1759-1833) and through visiting his house met other rising watercolour artists of the day.

Cristall's usual subjects included classical figures with landscapes, genre subjects, and rustic groups. As a watercolour painter, Cristall gained an honourable position due to the simplicity of his style and his manner of execution. Five of his drawings, including 'The Young Fisher-Boy' (late-18th to early-19th century) and 'Cadmus Destroying the Dragon at the Spring of Dirce' (1825), are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Eighty-five of his drawings and paintings are in the collection of the Tate. Cristall was an early member of the Sketching Society. He also furnished some of the classical figures in Barret's landscapes and some groups in George Fennell Robson's Scotch Scenery.

In 1805, Cristall became a founder of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours and made the first public exhibition of his works there, continuing to exhibit there for many years and later becoming its President. He exhibited three times at the Royal Academy in 1803, 1834, and 1844, three times at the British Institute, and 376 times at the Royal Watercolour Society, as it is known today. In 1822, with his health in decline, Cristall went to Goodrich on the Wye where he lived until the loss of his wife in 1840. This drove him again to London, where he died in 1847. His body was buried beside his wife in Goodrich, as he had requested.