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George Fennel Robson

From Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover, Kent, ca. 1813-1832

Description

Maker

  • George Fennel Robson, 1788-1833, English

Title

From Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover, Kent

Year

ca. 1813-1832

Medium

Watercolor over graphite on cream laid paper

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • watercolor,
  • graphite

Supports

  • Cream laid paper

Dimensions

18.7 x 26.2 cm (7 3/8 x 10 5/16 inches)

Type

  • Works on Paper,
  • Drawings and Watercolors

Credit

Anonymous gift

Object Number

74.107.56

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

From Dover to Penzance

December 3, 2010 - June 5, 2011

Overlooking the English Channel’s narrowest point, the towering
white-chalk headland known as Shakespeare’s Cliff lies just
twenty-one miles from the coast of France. The name stems
from its association with King Lear, in which the blind Earl of
Gloucester attempts suicide from “a cliff, whose high and bending
head looks fearfully in the confined deep.” Here we see Gloucester
in the lower right, the hunched old man in brown robes and a
red cap, accompanied by his son Edgar, who saves him from self-destruction.
Unlike most watercolor specialists, George Fennel
Robson worked primarily with historical and literary subjects,
often combining Shakespearian narratives with actual landscape
settings and using rich, saturated colors to further distinguish his
paintings from those of competitors.

The English Eye

June 21 - September 1, 1991

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is From Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover, Kent with the accession number of 74.107.56. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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