George Barret, R.A.

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 15 March 1990, lot 75;
from where acquired by the present owner

George Barret was a founding member of the Royal Academy and one of the leading British landscape artists of the 18^th century. He was admired by his contemporaries for his accurate and sensitive depiction of the natural world. The clergyman Joseph Pott believed that ‘every tree he paints is distinctly characterised’, while his friend Edmund Burke recognized that he was ‘a wonderful observer of the accidents of nature’. His reputation was in fact greater than that of the Welsh painter Richard Wilson’s (1714-1782) and he carried out commissions for important patrons such as William, 3^rd Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire and Henry, 3^rd Duke of Buccleuch at Delkeith Park, near Edinburgh.

Barret's confident use of gouache in this work has allowed him to emphasise the sublime elements of the passing storm. His interest in the spectacular effects of the weather is echoed by the titles of some of his exhibited works. At the Society of Artists in 1765, for example, he showed Landscape, the effect of a rainbow, while in 1767, he displayed Moonlight, with the effect of a Mist.