Rydal Bridge, Westmoreland

Object Type

Oil paintings of Romantic scenery steadily increased in popularity after the beginning of the 19th century. The influence of the Lake poets, chiefly William Wordsworth, increased the demand for pictures of the unspoilt scenery of the Lake District.

Subjects Depicted

The view is of Pelter Bridge, near Rydal Hall and Rydal Mount, just north of Ambleside and Lake Windermere. The wild scenery and the bridge's picturesque decay reflects the developing cult of the Picturesque, and most tourists to the Lake District over the next few decades would explore this area. Wordsworth, who was born in Cumbria, eventually settled at Rydal Mount in 1813, remaining there until his death in 1850.

People

Rathbone exhibited Lake District subjects almost throughout his career at the Royal Academy from 1785 to 1801. The paintings of Richard Wilson (?1713-1782) had obviously influenced him, for, like other artists of the time, he adapted some of the characteristics deployed by Wilson and other painters of the Italian countryside for his own works undertaken in Britain.