© Somerset County Museum
The Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, with Figures and Livestock in the Foreground, and Glastonbury Tor Beyond.
Artist: George Arnald (1763 - 1841)
Location: Somerset County Museum
Date: circa 1810
Materials: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 120 x 147cm
Grant:
Amount Paid: £10,393 (Total: £24,000)
Vendor: Christie's
Review number: 5806 (2006)
Provenance:
Henry Brandreth; Dr R. G. Apthorpe; Sotheby's, 1984; Christie's, 1985; Christie's, 2006.
Description:
The ruins of Glastonbury Abbey exerted a powerful hold on the Romantic imagination and were frequently depicted in art. This painting is among the best known images of the Abbey transformed by the prism of Romanticism and one of Arnald's most atmospheric works. Strong chiaroscuro dramatises the composition, in which the picturesque ruins are illuminated by a shaft of golden light breaking through a stormy sky, and the eye is led from the bucolic cattle and sheep in the foreground to the distant tor.
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