The Banks of the River Loing, 1903

Sir Ernest Albert Waterlow RA (1850 - 1919)

RA Collection: Art

Waterlow attended Cary’s School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the Turner gold medal for painting in 1873. He painted in both oils and watercolours, exhibiting landscapes and animal pictures. This painting portrays a tranquil scene on the River Loing, a branch of the Seine that flows south of Paris near the Forest of Fontainebleau.

This choice of location is highly significant, as the Loing area was the home of the ‘Barbizon School’ of French landscape painters. The scenery around Fontainebleau attracted a range of artists united by their interest in rural subjects and plein air painting – including Theodore Rousseau, Jean Francois Millet and Camille Corot. Waterlow visited Barbizon in the mid-1890s and was particularly impressed by the work of Corot. This painting, with its breezy, outdoors feel, subtle palette and modest subject matter, has much in common with the Barbizon ethos.