17 Rowlandson Paintings

9 September 2006 – 24 March 2007

This exhibition displayed 17 of Thomas Rowlandson’s watercolour sketches. Three of the
paintings can be seen below.

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This sketch depicts a cutter-rigged fishing smack in rather inclement weather, with a
crew rather the worse for wear for over-indulging in alcohol.

Perhaps the title “The Whiting Fishery” is a pun upon the Isle of “Wight”- such treatment
would be typical of Rowlandson’s satirical approach in many of his sketches.

Pencil, pen and grey ink and watercolour. 1791

© Isle of Wight Council IWCMS.2002.80

This sketch shows four travellers, presumed to be the artists Thomas Rowlandson, Samuel
Howitt, Henry Wigstead, and one other, in a horse drawn vehicle. The shadows confirm
that the journey westwards is taking place in the afternoon, presumably after the lunch at
The New Inn in Shalfleet. The location, between Shalfleet and Yarmouth, may be at
Ningwood, where two fords existed, or near the junction with Hill Place Lane where a small
stream crossed the road.

The four gentleman tourists are being conveyed on chairs in a cart, drawn by three horses
in line, called a randem. The state of the forded road highlights the lack of money spent on
highways before the setting up of the Highway Commissioners under the "Act for Amending
the Roads and
Highways in the Isle of Wight" passed in 1813.

Pencil, pen and grey ink and watercolour. 1791

Purchased with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Art
Collections Fund.
© Isle of Wight Council IWCMS.2002.91

This view from St Thomas’s Square looks towards the Market House, an arcaded building
with a Town Hall on the first floor and open market at street level. The building in
Rowlandson’s sketch was erected in 1638, replacing an older “Audit House” at a cost of
£500. This building was in turn replaced by the present Guildhall, built by John Nash in 1815,
based upon the same principle of an open arcaded ground floor (since infilled), and a Town
Hall on the first floor.

The soldiers depicted on the far left are probably members of the Isle of Wight Volunteers.
To their right is a soldier from a foreign Hussar regiment in British service, possibly either
from Choiseul’s Hussars or Hompesch’s Hussars. Both of these regiments were stationed
on the Isle of Wight in 1795.

Pencil, pen and grey ink and watercolour. Circa 1795

Purchased with the assistance of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Art
Collections Fund.

© Isle of Wight Council IWCMS.2002.138

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