Attrib. David Cox OWS Moonlit Scene with Telescope

An original early 19th-century watercolour painting, Attrib. David Cox OWS, Moonlit Scene with Telescope.

This beautifully poetic watercolour, previously in private ownership, bears a long-standing attribution to David Cox Senior. The large size, narrative content and tantalising authorship of this watercolour make it an exceptionally appealing work; art and science combine in a timeless image of past and future, antiquity and progress. The painting is smartly presented, ready to hang, in a gilt frame with elegant wash line mount.

Informally titled 'D. Cox's Telescope', the painting sites two young men on the terrace steps of a classical building, with one man pointing a telescope beyond the castellated skyline towards the milky low-hanging moon. In 1836 Cox painted several watercolours of figures strolling on the terraces at Haddon Hall, dressed in 17th-century costume, but here the setting has an Italianate feel—the classical facade at the right and silhouetted cypress trees—which lends the image a sense of the timelessness of antiquity (Cox did not visit Italy, but the Bay of Naples held particular appeal for him and was a subject repeated in a number of his watercolours). The composition also has the elegantly staged quality of a theatre set; Cox indeed spent his early career employed at Birmingham Theatre, where he worked with Italian scene-painter De Maria, and in 1804 he moved to London on the promise of work by the theatre impresario Philip Astley.

Cox's art is celebrated for its preoccupation with weather, atmospheric conditions and light, which has earned him the accolade of anticipating the Impressionists. There are a number of extant watercolours by Cox depicting moonlight scenes, including Moonlight Landscape (Yale Centre for British Art) The Night Train (Birmingham Museums) and Moonlight, View on the Thames near Chertsey (aquatint after Cox). Here, not only does the painting capture the fleeting atmospheric light of the moon, grand and still, but also the telescope introduces a poetic symbolism. The 19th century was an era of great scientific developments in astronomy and also a time for mass involvement in the science, through amateur clubs and societies. In the present painting, the young men at the lower right stand and sit informally, one with a small dog, the other with his hat cast to the ground. These appear to be young friends rather than scientists, and the image evokes a metaphysical sense of possibility and progress.

Interestingly, Cox's home town of Birmingham was also home to the Lunar Society (1765–1813), a group of philosophers, intellectuals, and industrialists who gathered each month on the Sunday nearest the full Moon—for the practical purpose of providing illumination on their return home, but also to symbolically align with their ideals of advancing science and society. The artist Joseph Wright of Derby was associated with the group and often included moonlight in his works—possibly as a nod to the society. Whilst Cox was not a member, the Lunar Society was a significant intellectual force in Birmingham at the time, and knowledge of its activities enriches the resonance of the present painting.

On wove paper, laid down on a rough-textured brown paper resembling 'David Cox' Scotch paper, backed on board.

Provenance: The watercolour has evidence of being in the same private ownership for some time and the frame bears the inscription, 'I have been told by many that this is by David Cox – I think their eye is more professional than mine. It has, therefore, always been known as "D. Cox Telescope"'.