Waltham Abbey, Essex

De Wint’s masterful control of a watercolor here evokes trees, water and sky, as well as architecture. One of the oldest monasteries in England, Waltham Abbey is situated about sixteen miles north of London. Dissolved by Henry VIII, all that survives today of the once extensive complex is a twelfth-century church founded by Augustinian canons, its tower added 1556–58, and fragments of a fourteenth-century gatehouse. De Wint brought these elements closer together than they are in reality, and reduced the impact of secular encroachments by screening or omitting them. The entrance gate, at the left end of a bridge, is pierced by two gothic arches framed with moldings, with the sixteenth-century church tower standing against the sky beyond. Contemporary life is evoked by figures in the water and leaning over the bridge who wield long poles to clear weed or some other obstruction.