North View of the City of Rochester

Location

Country: Peru
City: Lima
Place: British Embassy

This distant view of the city of Rochester, in Kent, shows the River Medway winding its way through the city. Ships and boats are seen on the river and beyond Rochester Bridge can be made out. On the left bank of the river, the towers of Rochester Castle and Cathedral rise above the other buildings. In the foreground, on the opposite riverbank, five figures are seated, while another stands and talks to the group.

Joseph Farington was born in Leigh, Lancashire, son of the vicar of Leigh and rector of Warrington. He was educated in Manchester and studied under Richard Wilson in London from 1763. He entered the Royal Academy Schools in 1769 and became an Academician in 1785. His strength was in pen, ink and wash drawings of topographical views. He made extensive sketching tours of the UK and settled in the North Country from 1776. Works made there led to the publication ‘Views of the Lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland’ (1785). In 1780 he suffered a breakdown after his wife died. In the next year he moved to London. He died on a visit to his brother in Lancashire, when he fell down steps at Didsbury Church. His personal diaries were published in 1934.
Benjamin Thomas Pouncy was a pupil of printmaker William Woollett. From 1772 to 1789 he exhibited mainly watercolour views of Kent at the Society of Artists and the Royal Academy. He was also a printmaker, producing plates for antiquarian and travel books, and making etchings and engravings after his own designs. He worked collaboratively with Woolett on some prints. In the 1770s, he produced illustrations for the librarian at Lambeth Palace, historian Andrew Coltee. He later made copies of medieval manuscripts for archivist and collector Thomas Astle’s ‘The Origin and Progress of Writing’ (1784). Engraver and watercolourist Joseph Powell lodged with Pouncy in Lambeth for a time and may have been his pupil. He died in Lambeth in 1799.

Places

England, Kent

Subjects

topography, townscape/cityscape, tree, sunburst, cloud, river bank, river, hill, man, woman, parasol, bridge (urban), cathedral, tower, sailboat

Materials & Techniques

engraving, coloured engraving

Artist

Joseph Farington (1747 - 1821)
Benjamin Thomas Pouncy ( - 1799)

Title

North View of the City of Rochester

Date

published 10 April 1790

Medium

Coloured engraving

Acquisition

Purchased from the Parker Gallery, March 1969

GAC number

8356