Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior – Late 19th-century watercolour painting
Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior – Late 19th-century watercolour painting
Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior – Late 19th-century watercolour painting
Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior – Late 19th-century watercolour painting
Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior – Late 19th-century watercolour painting
Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior – Late 19th-century watercolour painting

Attrib. Hughson Hawley Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior

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An original late 19th-century watercolour painting – Attrib. Hughson Hawley, Jacobean Revival Dining Room Interior.

A glorious large interior in watercolour attributed to the architectural renderer Hughson Hawley (1850–1936).

The painting shows an interior view of a dining room, ornately decorated in Jacobean Revival style, with Baroque and Neoclassical elements. The oak panelling and overmantle, and elaborate stucco ceiling, are Jacobean in style, but these are attenuated by more delicate decorative features that were fashionable in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the floral patterned wallpaper, the decorative urns, pots and vases, and the neoclassical carving on the overmantle.

Hughson Hawley painted a similar interior watercolour, depicting the carved parlour at Crewe Hall in Cheshire (sold Christie's 2015). His palette here is similar, with a (somewhat unnatural) predominance of teal blue, featuring as a unifying hue across soft furnishings, walls and decorative vases. The sheet size is also very similar to the Crewe Hall painting.

Hawley started his career as a theatrical scene painter for the Theatre Royal and later at Stratford-upon-Avon. In 1879, on the invitation of the owner of Madison Square Theater in New York, Hawley emigrated to the United States, where he became a leading designer of theater backdrops. From here he moved into architectural rendering, producing drawings for prominent firms of proposed building designs. He enjoyed a fifty-year career working from his studio in New York City, producing thousands of drawings during one of the great eras of American architecture, when the first skyscrapers were being constructed.

This impressive watercolour showcases Hawley's celebrated combination of architectural precision and theatrical flair. The interior's mixture of design styles forms an interesting record of Revival architecture and interior design in the late 19th century.

In watercolour with graphite.

The watercolour is signed at the lower right corner with what appears to be the letters 'HuH'. Hughson Hawley formed his 'u's like 'v's.

+ Read the Artist Research

Hughson Hawley (1850–1936)

Hughson Hawley (1850–1936) was born in England, where his father was an actor and librarian of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford-upon-Avon. Self-taught as an artist, Hawley worked as a theatrical scene designer at London's Theatre Royal and later at Stratford-upon-Avon.

In 1879, on the instigation of the American dramatist Steele Mackaye of Madison Square Theater in New York, Hawley emigrated to America. He became a leading designer of theater backdrops in New York City. In 1880, the architects Francis H. Kimball and Thomas Wisedell, who had been commissioned to remodel the Madison Square Theater, encouraged Hawley to open an architectural rendering studio.

So followed a fifty-year career as the leading architectural renderer in New York, working from his studio in the Lincoln Building, 1 Union Square. He was employed by the city's most prominent architecture firms to produce drawings of proposed building designs, including creating perspectives for Cass Gilbert, Ernest Flagg, George B. Post, and Trowbridge & Livingston. This was an exciting time in American architecture, when the first skyscrapers were being constructed—and Hawley's coloured drawings helped translate technical plans into spectacular visions to capture the imagination. Hawley's drawings appeared in literary journals, newspapers, and mass-market magazines such as Harper’s Magazine.

Late in life Hughson Hawley returned to the UK. He died in 1936 at Patcham, Brighton, at the home of his daughter and son-in-law, the writer Jeffery Farnol.

COA
+ Artwork Details

Dimensions: Height: 51.3cm (20.2") Width: 63cm (24.8")

Presented: Please note that this picture will ship rolled in a tube.

Medium: Watercolour

Age: Late 19th-century

Signed: Initialled lower right.

Inscribed: No.

Dated: --

Condition: Minor age toning across the sheet, with some foxing and toning marks as shown (more apparent on the verso). There is slight damage to the verso of the sheet in the left half, which has caused minor abrasion / repaired tear to the front. Faint oblique crease line to the paper at the upper right. Overall, nevertheless, the front impression is good. Please see photos for detail.

Stock number: KD-057