{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O56632"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O56632/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2018LD9979/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2018LD9979/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2018LD9979","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018LD9980","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2018LD9981","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AT0224","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KE2125","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O56632/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O56632","accessionNumber":"FA.383","objectType":"Watercolour drawing","titles":[{"title":"Ancient Beech Tree","type":"popular title"},{"title":"Morning","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Paul Sandby (1730-1809) painted this watercolour in an unknown location. It is one of his most powerful and striking works, almost a portrait of a tree.\r\n\r\nSandy painted a similar landscape that is now in the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, USA. This has been recognised as showing a view of Bridgnorth seen from the other side of the River Severn in Shropshire.","physicalDescription":"Bodycolour landscape entitled 'Ancient Beech Tree'.  ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Sandby, Paul","id":"A3135"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":"Paul Sandby's exact birthdate is unknown.  He was born in Nottingham and was baptised there in St Peter's Church 12 January 1731"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"paper","id":"AAT14109"},{"text":"Opaque Watercolour","id":"x35013"}],"techniques":[{"text":"painting","id":"AAT54216"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Bodycolour on paper","categories":[{"text":"Drawings","id":"THES48966"},{"text":"Paintings","id":"THES48917"}],"styles":[{"text":"British School","id":"x30967"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2018LD9979","2018LD9980","2018LD9981","2006AT0224","2017KE2125"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"WS","id":"THES49603"},"free":"","case":"R","shelf":"109","box":"R"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"bodycolour","id":"x34671"}],[{"text":"opaque watercolour","id":"x42800"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1794","earliest":"1794-01-01","latest":"1794-12-31"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"42","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"Taken from Lionel Lambourne, British Watercolours in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1980"},{"dimension":"Width","value":"58.4","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":"Taken from Lionel Lambourne, British Watercolours in the V&A, 1980"},{"dimension":"Height","value":"680","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Gilt frame","note":"FRAME"},{"dimension":"Width","value":"840","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"Gilt frame","note":"FRAME"}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Paul Sandby (About 1730-1809), 'Ancient Beech Tree', 1794, bodycolour","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"p. 32","free":"Anne Anderson, Tim Craven, Della Hooke. Steve Marshall, Ian Massey, <u>Under the Greenwood. Picturing the British tree from Constable to Kurt Jackson</u> ISBN: 9781908326300"},{"reference":{"text":"Coombs, Katherine <i>British watercolours : 1750-1950</i> . London: V&A Publications, 2012","id":"AUTH346240"},"details":"p.18, pl.7","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"Bonehill, John and Daniels,Stephen (eds.), <i>Paul Sandby : Picturing Britain</i> London : Royal Academy of Arts, 2009","id":"AUTH357876"},"details":"101","free":""}],"production":"Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1795, no.579, as 'Morning'. ","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"landscape","id":"x35496"},{"text":"Beech","id":"x31755"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"[Provisional label written by Ronald Parkinson for his travelling exhibition and accompanying book British Watercolours at the Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A Publications, 1998.]\r\n\r\nPaul SANDBY R.A.  (1730-1809)\r\nAN ANCIENT BEECH TREE  1794\r\nSigned and dated P.Sandby 1794\r\n70.2 x 105.7 cm\r\nPurchased before 1860\r\nFA 383\r\n\r\nOne of Sandby's most powerful and striking works, this is in effect a 'portrait' of a magnificent tree.  Its massive twisted trunk and its many branches dominate the composition and dwarf the figures in the foregound.  The figures consist of two men, one holding a hat apparently filled with mushrooms, with a young girl, and a man and a woman in a donkey cart riding on the path towards the river.\r\n\r\nThere are several drawings of ancient trees by both Paul Sandby and his brother Thomas.  Such trees, apart from their majestic appearance, were also natural objects of curiosity.  For instance, a great beech tree in the grounds of Windsor Castle, where both artists worked, was supposed to have been so enormous that a woodman, his wife and four children, a sow and several pigs, lived in its trunk.  When it was eventually cut down, the residue left on the wood by the burning of peat by the family provided, so the story goes, the Sandbys with a good supply of bistre pigment for their paintings and drawings.\r\n\r\nThe location has not been identified, but there is a similar landscape by Sandby in the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven which has been recognised as a view of Bridgnorth seen from the other side of the River","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}}],"partNumbers":["FA.383"],"accessionNumberNum":"383","accessionNumberPrefix":"FA","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-12","recordCreationDate":"2001-03-09","availableToBook":false}}