The Moat Island, Windsor Great Park
Thomas Sandby British
Not on view
Thomas Sandby, and his brother Paul, helped to establish watercolor as a nuanced and expressive medium associated with British art. Both worked as military surveyors until 1746, when Thomas was appointed deputy ranger of Windsor Great Park by the duke of Cumberland, George III’s younger brother. This composition resembles the artist’s designs for Eight Views of Windsor (1754–55), a set of etchings. Mote (or Moat) Park is crossed by two tributaries of the Bourne Ditch, whose fortified meeting point lends the location its name. Graphite lines were applied freely on site, then developed with colored washes that sometimes ignore sketched elements. Cows and sheep dot a lawn bordered by trees before a distant body of water.
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