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Two windmills are backlit by silvery moonlight along the horizon of this loosely painted, horizontal landscape. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition. The left half of the painting is nearly filled with a towering tree with muted olive-green leaves and a tan trunk. Some dark branches dip toward the river that runs from the bottom center of the painting into the distance, in front of the windmills. Light shimmers on the gently rippling surface, which is lined to our right with grassy vegetation. A hollowed out, gnarled, broken tree trunk twists against the sky from the riverbank to our right. The windmills are in the near distance, facing off to our left. Their sails create Xs against the screen of pearly white clouds floating against a muted blue sky.

John Crome

Moonlight on the Yare, c. 1816/1817

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 58

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 98.4 x 125.7 cm (38 3/4 x 49 1/2 in.)

framed: 122.4 x 149.9 x 9.2 cm (48 3/16 x 59 x 3 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Paul Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1983.1.39

Artists / Makers

John Crome (artist) British, 1768 - 1821

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Kirkman Hodgson [1814-1879], of Ashgrove, Sevenoaks, Kent; by descent to his son, Robert Kirkman Hodgson [1850-1924], of Gavelacre, Hampshire. H. Darell Brown, London, by 1908;[1] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 23 May 1924, no. 17); (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); sold that same day to the Hon. (later Sir) Arthur Howard [1896-1971].[2] (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London), by 1973;[3] purchased July 1974 by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] The painting was included in the Franco-British Exhibition, Fine Arts Palace, White City, (London, 1908), no. 73.

[2] Stockbook no. 6277, Thomas Agnew & Sons, London

[3] Letter, Sir Geoffrey Agnew to J. Carter Brown, 8 August 1973, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Brown, H. Darell
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Hodgson, Kirkman Daniel
Hodgson, Robert Kirkman
Howard, Arthur Jared Palmer, The Hon.
Mellon, Paul

Exhibition History

1817: Probably Norwich Society, 1817, no. 14, as Moon Rising.

1908: Franco-British Exhibiton, Fine Art Palace, London, 1908, no. 73.

1911: International Fine Art Exhibition, British Fine Art Palace, Rome, 1911, no. 19.

1919: English Eighteenth Century Pictures, Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, 1919, no. 19.

1921: Crome Centenary Exhibition, Castle Museum, Norwich, 1921, no. 29.

1934: British Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1934, no. 447 (Commemorative Catalogue, no. 332, repro. pl. xcviiib).

1951: Treasures from Sussex Houses, Art Gallery, Worthing, 1951, no. 167.

1958: Crome and Cotman, Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, 1958, no. 52, repro.

1968: John Crome, Arts Council of Great Britain, Castle Museum, Norwich; Tate Gallery, London, 1968, no. 12.

1986: Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

1987: William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism, New York Public Library; Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington; Chicago Historical Society, 1987-1988, no. 280, 187 color repro., fig. 173.

Technical Summary

The coarse canvas is plain woven; it has been lined. The absence of cusping except along the right edge suggests that the dimensions may be slightly altered; although the work is only a little smaller than a standard canvas size, 40 x 50 in., the original painting might have extended an inch or so farther at the top, where the tips of the branches are truncated. The ground is light beige. The painting is executed in rich, fluid, translucent scumbles with thicker wet into wet blending in the sky and whites, and some palette-knifelike passages in the tree trunk and interstices of the foliage on the left; the ground is used as a middle tone. The paint surface is slightly solvent abraded and has been very slightly flattened during lining; paint losses are minimal. The older natural resin varnish has been partially removed from the trees and foliage and completely removed in the sky. The moderately thick top layer of synthetic varnish has not discolored.

Bibliography

1905: Dickes, William Frederick. The Norwich School of Painting. London and Norwich, n.d. [1905]: 98, repro.

1921: Baker, C.H. Collins. Crome. London, 1921: 149, pl. xxxv.

1968: Clifford, Derek and Timothy. John Crome. London, 1968: 200-201, no. P43, pl. 88.

1978: Goldberg, Norman L. John Crome the Elder. 2 vols. Oxford, 1978: 1:186, 218, no. 99; 2:pl. 99.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 108, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 48-50, repro. 49.