Winchester College Publication English Watercolours from the Adam Crick Bequest | Page 4

Francis Place 1648-1727
By Richmond Castle, 1719
Pen and brown ink and washes over pencil on laid paper
12.4 x 17.8cm
Inscribed lower centre: ‘By Richmond Castle and dated 1719’
A
fter abandoning a career as a lawyer in London,
Francis Place moved to York where he lived a life of
gentlemanly leisure, pursuing an extraordinary range of
interests. Place was active as a draughtsman, engraver and
potter. He became involved with the antiquarian group
the York Virtuosi, taking a close interest in their scientific
researches. Place travelled widely in England and Wales,
sketching landscapes and medieval architecture as well
as indulging his passion for angling. On one journey, in
1678, he was briefly imprisoned as a suspected Jesuit spy.
Place discovered a talent for drawing as a young man.
He was encouraged by his friend Wenceslaus Hollar, a
Bohemian artist who had moved to England in 1637
and established himself as the leading printmaker of the
day. Many of Place’s drawings reflect his antiquarian
interests, and they include numerous detailed studies of
medieval buildings. Among the works by Place in the
Crick Bequest are studies of the ruined keep at Sheriff
Hutton Castle, and another unidentified fragment of
medieval architecture. In the last few decades of his life,
Place turned away from his earlier architectural studies
and he made series of wash drawings of landscapes, river-
scenes and seascapes. He was the first English artist whose
main preoccupation was landscape, something that had
previously been the preserve of foreign draughtsmen.
This distant view of Richmond Castle is a typical
example of the ‘tinted drawing’ used for topographical
views in the 18th century. The scene was first drawn
in pencil and then pen and ink. Light and shadow are
indicated by the application of washes of brown ink.
Place’s mastery of this tonal wash technique has resulted
in an atmospheric drawing of great delicacy.
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