Richard Parkes Bonington was a contemporary of Constable and Turner, but his death at the age of 25 from tuberculosis excluded him from the casual art lovers’ radar.
Now, visitors to the National Gallery in London can see a rare landscape by the influential 19th-century artist after it acquired a second work for its collection.
The hazy morning view of the River Seine, painted by Bonington in about 1825, has been acquired for the nation under the acceptance in lieu scheme. The initiative allows people to offset inheritance tax bills by offering works of art. In this case it settled £643,365 of tax.
Gabriele Finaldi, the director of the National Gallery, expressed his gratitude to the government scheme, which is administered by Arts Council England. “Bonington is an important and rare artist. This evocative and atmospheric view of the River Seine is a superb example of his work,” he said.
Bonington was born in Nottingham but spent much of his short life in France, studying in Calais before moving to Paris. He became friends with artists such as Eugène Delacroix , who admired the Englishman’s “easy brush and coquettish touch”.
The National Gallery said Bonington, who spent much of his time on sketching northern France, was vital to our understanding of French and British art of the Romantic period.
It pointed to the synergies with important paintings in the national collection, including Constable’s The Hay Wain (1821), which won a gold medal at the 1824 Paris Salon. Bonington was also a gold medal recipient that year.
Edward Harley, the chair of the acceptance in lieu panel, said he was thrilled that the work had been acquired on behalf of the public. “This beautiful, small landscape painting, executed in the brief period of Bonington’s artistic maturity before his death at 25, demonstrates his mastery at evoking the subtle transition from foreground to distance through light and atmosphere.”
View on the River Seine – Morning is on display in gallery F alongside landscape oil sketches by Corot, Degas and Huet.
