Trelissick House, Truro (or Falmouth)

  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Other
    City: other locations abroad

    This wooded scene is framed by trees to either side. On the tree-covered hills beyond there are several properties, overlooking an estuary or river upon which two sailing boats and a rowing boat are travelling.

    Although purchased for the Government Art Collection in 1974 as 'Trelissick, Cornwall', all the buildings represented in this work have yet to be identified. Trelissick House itself is not depicted. The painting was sold through Christie’s, London, in 1974 under the title 'Wooded River Landscape' and the subsequent identification of the location as Trelissick is unconfirmed.

    The Trelissick estate is situated on a headland overlooking the estuary of the River Fal, on the south coast of Cornwall. Although a house has stood on the site since the mid-18th century, it was not until the late 19th century that the gardens were landscaped. The Copeland family, who inherited the house in 1937, continued to improve the estate and gave the gardens their present shape. The smooth expanses of lawn enclosed by dense shrubs and woods, pierced by winding walks, which characterise Trelissick are not unlike the landscape represented here.

  • About the artist
    Thomas Lyde Hornbrook was a leading marine painter from Plymouth. He became marine painter to H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the Princess Victoria. This probably occurred in 1833, when the Duchess and the Princess visited Plymouth and went on a cruise in the frigate Forte to inspect the Eddystone lighthouse. Perhaps because he lived in a naval port his choice of subjects was mostly of scenes involving Royal Navy ships.
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  • Details
    Title
    Trelissick House, Truro (or Falmouth)
    Date
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    height: 58.50 cm, width: 89.00 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Oscar & Peter Johnson, November 1974
    Inscription
    bl: T L Hornbrook
    Provenance
    With O & P Johnson; from whom purchased by the Department of the Environment in November 1974, as 'Trelissick, Cornwall'
    GAC number
    11667