Painted Gardens: English Watercolours, 1850-1914

In the golden age of English gardens, Victorian and Edwardian patronage of the arts led to the commissioning of a group of artists, who recorded in watercolours, the landscaped splendour of the age. This is an album of over 100 such paintings. The gardens detailed range from the Yew Alley at Rockingham Castle and the Lower Terrace Walk at Shrubland Hall to the Paved Garden at Gravetye Manor and the Double Herbaceous Border at Arley Hall. Some of these gardens are now lost, yet many others are still thriving and some are open to the public. Penelope Hobhouse compares the painted image with the reality and refers to many contemporary sources as evidence of the balance that has been maintained between garden designer and interpreting artist. In his preface, Christopher Wood portrays the lives of the artists; George Samuel Elgood, Ernest Arthur Rowe, Beatrice Parsons and Helen Allingham, and assesses their contribution to this age of English painting.