Greenwich Hospital (recto); Study of a Building (verso)
David Cox British
Not on view
This watercolor sketch brims with useful information: near the top of the sheet, between the paired columns, touches of blue (and, elsewhere, the word "blue") indicate the color of the sky; at the upper right, a triangle of brown wash suggests a pediment; in the center, swift strokes of black, red, and blue describe figures dressed in naval uniform. Cox began his career as a theatrical scene painter and rose to become one of the leading watercolor artists of the nineteenth century. He first exhibited views of Greenwich in the early 1820s, and the handling here anticipates drawings that Cox made in Paris in 1829. Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor designed Greenwich Hospital as a retirement home for saliors of the British Royal Navy, and it operated as such between 1692 and 1869.
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