English School circa 1740

Essay:

This fascinating bird's eye panorama undoubtedly depicts Packwood House in Warwickshire. First built between 1556 and 1560 as a timber framed house for John Fetherston. It was given to the National Trust in 1941 by the then owner Graham Ash who had inherited the house from his father, the Birmingham industrialist, Alfred Ash.

Another National Trust house not far from Packwood and also in Warwickshire is Charlecote Park, which was built by Sir Thomas Lucy in 1558. Interestingly, Charlecote appears to have been painted by the same artist as our picture of Packwood. Both paintings display the compositional features and perhaps more convincingly both have figures (allegorical or real) in the bottom left corner.

It is known that artists who specialised in painting these type of panoramic views, whether it was of a country house or a town, would travel around the area looking for work. It is highly likely that this is the case with these two paintings of Packwood and Charlecote, which were painted around the same date.

We are grateful to Thomas Jenner-Fust who has suggested an attribution to John Lewis (active 1736 - 1776).

Provenance:

Private Collection, UK