At the English Coast

Bonington, who was a noted landscape painter and litographer, spent much of his brief life in France, where he was in contact with the great Romantic artists of the time, above all with Delacroix. This watercolour, an oil version of which is in the Wallace Collection, London, reflects his experiences on his first visit home in 1825. Bonington used delicate colour tints and large, energetic brushstrokes to characterise the typically Romantic theme of the stormy sea.