View from my window: Maentwrog, Snowdonia, Wales. 185_. Pencil, watercolour and gouache on paper. 14 1⁄4 x 29 3⁄4 inches (36.2 x 75.7 cm). Private collection. Image © 2020 Christie's Images Limited by kind permission (right click disabled; not to be downloaded).
Maentwrog is a small village in North Wales arranged on the west facing slope and facing down the Vale of Ffestiniog towards the sea at Bae Tremadog. Maentwrog is within the mountainous region of Snowdonia and the River Dwyryd runs alongside the village. Many of its villagers worked in the nearby slate quarries. The Ffestiniog Railway was opened in 1836 allowing for easier access to the area. Barbara travelled widely in England and Wales looking for suitable landscapes to paint and had visited Maentwrog in as early as 1850. As Pam Hirsch has pointed out:
She constantly carried sketchbooks in quest of her visions and was known to work outdoors for twelve hours at a stretch. In 1850 she went on painting expeditions in the Lake District and in Wales…. For Barbara 1850 marked the first move from painting privately towards entry into the public domain. She had two Welsh landscapes accepted by the Royal Academy - View near Tremadoc, N. Wales and Dawn - near Maentwrog, N. Wales. Barbara's paintings never simply reproduced a view; she always saw to capture the Shelleyan "Spirit of Nature," a spirit, which was appreciated by some of her critics more than others. Anna Jameson wrote to Bessie [Parkes]: "Barbara's pictures are full of that fresh feeling for nature, that absence of the conventional in treatment which delights me." [43]
This particular watercolour sketch view from her window is dated October 19, 185_ with the last numeral being indiscernible. This suggests Barbara must have returned to this area more than once, since the Royal Academy exhibition of 1850 would have opened in May. The view shown has trees just starting to show their autumnal colours in the foreground, a broad plain stretching down to the River Dwyryd in the midground, and the Snowdonia mountains in the background.
Bibliography
British and European Art. London: Christie's (29 July 2020): lot 20.
Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Radical. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
Created 1 February 2025