A View of Barnard Castle, Yorkshire, from the River

Philip Wilson Steer (1860 - 1942)

The Bowes Museum

1896

Steer developed a new style of painting from the mid 1890s reassessing the works of Constable and Turner. He visited many of Turner's much loved sites and visited Barnard Castle in 1893, a town that had proved a favourite with Turner. In this work, Steer chose a viewpoint that provided an entirely original composition and depicted the tall mill buildings which were powered by the river and served the town's thriving carpet industry. Turner chose to omit these signs of the town's industrial heritage from his watercolour 'Barnard Castle', now in the collection at Yale Center for British Art. Many of these 18th century buildings have since been demolished and this painting provides an important record of the town's mill architecture.

• Medium: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 50.8 x 61cm
• Art Fund Grant: £3300 ( Total: £9,000)
• ArtFunded in: 2008
• Vendor: Tessa Murdoch

Provenance

Christie's, 1942; Agnews; by descent to Dr Tessa Murdoch.

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