Artist Joseph Nash - Painting of Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire

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Joseph Nash

The Drawing Room, Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire

The Painting

A watercolour measuring 13½" x 19½". Signed J. Nash and dated 1869. Exhibited at the Old Watercolour Society in the same year.

Labels verso: (1) previous owner Mrs. Lang Huggins of Hadlow Grange, Hadlow Down; (2) framemakers Foord & Dickinson, Carvers & Gilders of 90 Wardour Street, London (trading from that address in 1863-79). The painting is presented in its original frame.

About the Artist

Joseph Nash (1808-1878) was born in Great Marlow, eldest son of the Revd Okey Nash who presided over a private school at Croydon. He was educated at his father’s school and was articled in 1829 to A.C. Pugin. In the same year he accompanied Pugin to Paris to help in preparing drawings for Paris and its Environs (2 Vols, 1830). Nash went on to publish The Mansions of England in Olden Times (3 Vols, from 1832) and The Architecture of the Middle Ages (1838), in which context The Builder described him as that ‘famous master of architectural delineation’.

Nash was elected an associate of the Old Watercolour Society in 1834 and became a full member in 1842. He exhibited in 1831-79 at the Royal Academy (3), British Institute (11), Old Watercolour Society (266), and New Watercolour Society (6). His paintings are held in various public and private collections including the British Museum and the V&A Museum. He is chiefly remembered for his interior views of the Great Exhibition of 1851, commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (H.M. The Queen has 49 of these in her extensive collection of Nash watercolours), as well as his interior views of the Houses of Parliament (in the collection of the Palace of Westminster).

The historian Martin Hardie noted that Nash’s ‘great success and celebrity were achieved by his careful studies of civil architecture, in which he showed a liking for the late flamboyant period of the Gothic style and its mixture with that of the Renaissance… He liked to dispose and group his figures in gay costume set off by a pleasant play of light and colour, but his nobles, cavaliers and stately dames were not the main source of attraction… They were accessories to the architectural scene, which was nearly always the grand interior of a Tudor baronial mansion or an Elizabethan hall.’

The Subject

The Drawing Room, Broughton Castle, Oxfordshire. This picturesque moated house, seat of the Lords Saye & Sele, was described in J.A. Gotch’s influential book Architecture of the Renaissance in England (1894): ‘there are several fine rooms dating from about 1599, the most remarkable of which is the Drawing Room, with an excellent ceiling, panelled walls, and the curious internal porch… It is in reality a device of the planner to get into the adjoining room at the least sacrifice of space, but in skilful hands it has been made a very pleasing architectural feature. This particular doorway is said to have been added after the Restoration, and the motto – which may be rendered “Of what used to be, the memory pleases but little” – is supposed to record the contrition of the owner Lord Saye and Seele [sic], for having taken an active part against Charles I. But the character of the work fixes its date to the early part of the 17th century and the motto may be held by admirers of the style of that period to record the owner’s satisfaction at the disappearance of an earlier (Gothic) doorway.’