A Water Tower in a Verdant Landscape (The Water Tower). Watercolour and gouache on paper. 20 7/16 x 13 1/4 inches (51.9 x 33.7 cm). Private collection, image courtesy of the author.
Although Barbara Leigh Smith was trained by more traditional watercolour artists like William Henry Hunt, Cornelius Varley, and David Cox, she also had a long association with the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly D. G. Rossetti. In 1854 she was invited to join a sketching club called The Folio. This club primarily consisted of members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and was to include such artists as D. G. Rossetti, J. E. Millais, W. H. Hunt, F. M. Brown, Charles Allston Collins, Arthur Hughes, W. B. Scott, Michael Halliday, Alexander Munro, J. W. Inchbold, Mark Anthony, John Leech, and Richard Doyle. A number of other female artists were also asked to join, including Eleanor Vere Boyle, Louisa, Lady Waterford, and Anna Mary Howitt.
The technique of using a mixture of transparent watercolour and opaque gouache over a ground of Chinese white to give luminosity was a technique Bodichon often used in her paintings. It is likely she had learned this method from its inventor, William Henry Hunt, whom she trained under and who is known to have advised Barbara on her paintings (Hirsh 19). She eventually became one of the best-known British female artists of her time. As Marsh and Gerrish Nunn have pointed out: "her significance to the women artists' movement was acknowledged in the critical appellation 'The Rosa Bonheur of landscape'" (102). Her watercolours when exhibited at the French Salon even elicited the praise of the Barbizon School painters Camille Corot and Charles-François Daubigny. Bodichon had studied under Corot in Paris in 1864 and had also met Daubigny at that time. She would later host Daubigny when he fled Paris for London during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
The location of this water tower is unknown – whether it is in Europe or North Africa. Bodichon travelled widely, visiting many locations in Europe, the United States, and exotic locations like Algeria. The water tower is unusual in being square in shape whereas most such towers tend to be round. The towers of ancient Roman aqueducts were frequently square, however, suggesting it could perhaps be an ancient structure.
Bibliography
Hirsch, Pam. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Radical. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
Created 2 February 2025