Neath Abbey (c. 1840s): Art, History and Details

Neath Abbey (c. 1840s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Peter De Wint (British, 1784–1849).

The work and its context

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

Among the key artists of the golden age of watercolor painting in England, Peter DeWint was known for his panoramic views of spacious, seemingly commonplace landscapes rendered in broad washes of earth-tone hues. This drawing depicts the ruins of Neath Abbey, a Cistercian monastery established in the early 12th century in south Wales. From the Tudor period there was industrial activity around the abbey, and by the time DeWint was painting the priory, the Neath Abbey Iron Company had engulfed the environs of the church with copper smelting and manufacture. DeWint chose to omit evidence of the transformation of the area and its role in the Industrial Revolution.

Object facts

• Title: Neath Abbey
• Date: c. 1840s
• Creator attribution: Peter De Wint (British, 1784–1849)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor with traces of graphite underdrawing and scratch-away
• Dimensions: Overall: 16 x 23.6 cm (6 5/16 x 9 5/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2005.198

A detail from the museum

Peter DeWint traveled abroad only once, to Normandy, and was disappointed with the landscape outside of his native England.

Collection credit

Gift of the Painting and Drawing Society of The Cleveland Museum of Art

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lemonedes, Heather. "Quintessentially British." Cleveland Art (July/August 2007).
• Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.

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.