Designs for the Pavilion at Brighton: Frontispiece 1806
Pen and ink with wash, an etching mounted at centre | 53 x 35 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 918069
Humphry Repton (1752-1818)
Designs for the Pavilion at Brighton: Frontispiece 1806
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A wash drawing, forming the frontispiece to Repton's Designs for Brighton Pavilion. Repton's printed tradecard is pasted at the centre. Around it are the tools of his business: surveying equipment, rakes, a spade, pick axes, a watering can and an artist's palette with brushes. Below, is a quotation from Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757): 'Designs that are vast only by their dimensions, are always the sign of a common and low imagination. No work of art can be great, but as it deceives[;] to be otherwise is the prerogative of nature only'. Above, Winter as an old man warming his hands at a brazier and Flora garlanding a pedestal surmounted with Prince of Wales's feathers.
This drawing is part of Repton's Red Book for Brighton Pavilion (970493) submitted to George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) in 1806.Provenance
Presented to George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) by the artist, 1806
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Creator(s)
Acquirer(s)
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Medium and techniques
Pen and ink with wash, an etching mounted at centre
Measurements
53 x 35 cm (sheet of paper)
Other number(s)
RL 18069