Left: The Haystack: Halsway Manor Farm, Somerset, by John William North R.W.S., A.R.A. (1842-1924). 1864. Watercolour and gouache on paper. 101/8 x 71/2 inches (25.7 x 19.0 cm). Private collection. Right: The Home Pond. 1866. Wood engraving by the Dalziel Brothers after J.W. North. 6 7/8 x 5 3/16 inches (17.5 x 13.2 cm). Details taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no. 25.78.553. Image source: A Round of Days, p. 15.
The watercolour on the left above features a fishpond in the foreground before which stands a young woman gazing at a farm labourer climbing up a ladder to lay a thatching of hay on a gigantic haystack in the midground. North has incorporated the south front of the historic Halsway Manor in the background as well as a forested slope of the Quantock Hills. The walled garden that will feature prominently in North's Old Bowling Green of the following year is also visible in the midground, as are the logs of trees that have been felled. The models for the couple may be the farm tenants, a Mr. and Mrs. William Thorne. Halsway Manor that dates from the fifteenth century was located in Somerset on the edge of the Quantock Hills and close to the Severn estuary. North lived there as a lodger on several occasions during the 1860s. The manor house and its picturesque surroundings feature frequently and prominently in his watercolours and illustrations from this time period.
This same view was reworked for one of North's best-known wood engravings The Home Pond published in A Round of Days in 1866 (Newall, Pre-Raphaelite Vision, 203), and shown on the right above. Christopher Newall has noted: "The rectilinear and asymmetrical pattering of the design emphasises its abstract qualities, and the avoidance of picturesque compositional focus makes a remarkable departure from the Foster [Myles Birket Foster] tradition of illustration. Its rich texture and the meticulous attention to detail connect it with Pre-Raphaelitism" (Newall, Pre-Raphaelite Vision, 203). The composition of the watercolour and the engraving are virtually identical except that the clouds in the sky are better delineated in the print. Newall has pointed out that the watercolour "depends for its effects on a richness of color and warmth of evening light which are characteristic of North's watercolour painting in the 1860s" (Newall, Victorian Landscape, 118).
Bibliography
Staley, Allen and Christopher Newall. Pre-Raphaelite Vision. Truth to Nature. London: Tate Publishing, 2004, cat.121, 203.
Wilcox, Scott and Christopher Newall. Victorian Landscape Watercolour. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1992, cat. 55, 118-19.
Created 21 May 2023