Description
Here is a newspaper article about this artist and painting:-
Painting Pastoral Scenes….The Thames At Windsor.
This week we are going to look at a painting of a local watercolour scene by a very well respected Victorian artist who based his artistic techniques on two very fine artists, J M W Turner and John Constable and you can see the influences of both in this beautiful little picture.
Frederick Henry Henshaw RBSA (1807-1891) is a listed British artist of some repute. He was born in Harborne just south of Birmingham in 1807. He was the youngest of three brothers all of whom had artistic leanings with his eldest brother, John, being a Diesinker and Medallist, whilst his other brother, Thomas, was an engraver. Frederick rose to very heady heights very quickly. At the age of just 19, after having studied under the tutelage of artist Joseph Vincent Barber, he was one of the founding members of The Birmingham Society of Artists eventually separately holding the honorary posts of treasurer and secretary of the society which is now known as The Royal Society of Birmingham Artists. He would go on to be a trustee of the society until his death in 1891. Early in his career he had studied and replicated the works of Constable and Turner in order to try to understand their techniques and to bring their skills into his own works. This ability and style was very much a winner and got many of his works exhibited at The Royal Academy. He was a constant exhibitor at The Academy from 1824 through to 1864.
Henshaw travelled extensively throughout Europe to extend his knowledge, ability and to discover new beautiful vistas to sketch and paint. His major sketching tour went through four countries, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, from 1837-1840.
This stunning little watercolour is entitled “The Thames At Windsor” and is a classic example of his pastoral work, with a herd of cows to the foreground munching away on the riverside meadow grass, the Thames meandering along behind them with Windsor Castle away in the background, partially hidden by a bank of substantial and beautifully painted trees.
Henshaw’s work is highly sought after and as a result his paintings still achieve good prices at auction. There is one of his oil paintings available as I write this on a well known online auction site with a starting price of over £5,000. His traditional auction prices rise to over £9,000. However, these prices are for oil paintings which traditionally achieve higher prices than watercolours. So, to put this painting into perspective, his watercolour paintings have sold at auction for between £600 to £2,500.
