Luton Park, Bedfordshire (1760s): Art, History and Details

Luton Park, Bedfordshire (1760s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Paul Sandby (British, 1731–1809).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Paul Sandby’s Luton Park, Bedfordshire, belongs to a set of twelve views commissioned by John, 3rd Earl of Bute (1713–1792) in the mid-1760s. After a period of public life, Bute retreated to the country, purchasing Luton Park north of London, and commissioning Paul Sandby to make watercolors recording the estate’s buildings and grounds. In Sandby’s subtle but luminous style, the present drawing depicts the fields outside the estate’s Palladian-style gatehouse, which appears on the right, nestled among trees. Wheat fields and trees populate the distant vista, and, in the center, one sees a view of the Luton castle. The work stayed together with all twelve of Sandby’s drawings in an album at Luton Park until it was discovered in 1996.

Object facts

• Title: Luton Park, Bedfordshire
• Date: 1760s
• Creator attribution: Paul Sandby (British, 1731–1809)
• Culture: England, 18th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor over pencil, heightened with bodycolor and pen and gray ink on laid paper
• Dimensions: Matted: 49.1 x 104.9 cm (19 5/16 x 41 5/16 in.); Sheet: 45.1 x 100.6 cm (17 3/4 x 39 5/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2022.94

A detail from the museum

The Earl of Bute, owner of the estate depicted in this watercolor, was the favorite minister of King George III of England.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Christie, Manson & Woods. Works of Art from the Bute Collection. 1996.
• Sotheby's (Firm). Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries. 2022.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.