George Sidney Shepherd NWS Capriccio with Horham Church Font, Suffolk

An original 1836 watercolour painting – George Sidney Shepherd NWS, Antiquity Capriccio with Font from St Mary Church, Horham, Suffolk.

A clever, unusual work by the early 19th-century draughtsman and watercolourist George Sidney Shepherd NWS (1784–1862). Best known for his topographical and architectural watercolours, Shepherd worked on publications such as John Britton's The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain (1807).

In the present painting he appears to compose a fanciful scene based around the carved 15th-century font of St Mary's Church at Horham in Suffolk. The octagonal font at Horham is an unusual variation of the typical East Anglian design, with four buttresses and four lions around its stem, and beautifully carved lions, alternating with angels bearing shields, in the eight panels of the bowl. The stone carvings are today in a much worn state compared to Shepherd's representation.

Placing the font in an esoteric setting, staged with medieval cloak and chest in a dusty crypt-like space, the artist creates an atmospheric, Romantic image of the Victorian Gothic. The artist's name and the place and date of painting are incorporated into the image on a book cover at the right, in a trompe l'oeil style, that cleverly acknowledges the artifice of the painting as a construct rather than a naturalistic scene.

In watercolour with gum arabic to intensify the colour and white bodycolour highlights. On cream wove paper.