A Lancashire River
Sir Francis Seymour Haden British
Not on view
Seymour Haden was the unlikely combination of a surgeon and an etcher. Although he pursued a very successful medical career, he is mostly remembered for his etched work as well as for his writings on etching. He was one of a group of artists, including James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) and Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), whose passionate interest in the medium led to the so-called etching revival, a period that lasted well into the twentieth century. The extolling of etching for its inherent spontaneous qualities reached its pinnacle during this time. While the line of the etching needle, Haden wrote, was "free, expressive, full of vivacity," that of the burin was "cold, constrained, uninteresting," and "without identity.
View of Lancashire river; cows at left; river bank at right; cows in sky at left and at right.
"This was a well-known salmon pool on the Ribble.
State IV (Hb). The cow in the left foreground and the bull on the bank lightly shaded with drypoint."
[Source: Schneiderman, p. 379]
"Trial proofs: (b) The cow in the left corner is slightly shaded. The body of the bull seen in profile on the shore is lightly shaded in dry-point."
[Source: Harrington, p. 106]
