Port Scene

Following his move to Paris in 1818, Bonington frequently sketched watercolor scenes of the French ports at Boulogne, Honfleur, and Le Havre, and continued to explore these maritime themes through the mid-1820s. The Morgan drawing is quite typical of Bonington's work of this period in its depiction of a city port flanked by a harbor bastion or fort to the right, a grouping of ships in the middle, and a church spire visible in the distance to the left (for example, Port de Peche, Boulogne, ca. 1818, Private Collection, Noon 1991, p. 83, no. 1, repr.; also Honfleur, ca. 1821, Private Collection, Noon 1991, p. 94, no. 23, repr; and The Harbor, Le Havre, ca. 1821-22, Private Collection, Noon 1991, p. 106, no. 43, repr.; Pointon 2009, Grove Art Online). The shimmering, immaterial atmosphere of Bonington's harbor scene, the exact location of which has not been identified, is punctuated by the rhyming verticals of the fort's flagpole, the ship masts, and the church spire. Sean Leatherbury, 2009. Works cited: Noon, Patrick, Richard Parkes Bonington, 'On the Pleasure of Painting' (New Haven & London, 1991);Noon, Patrick, Richard Parkes Bonington, the complete paintings (New Haven and London, 2008); Peacock, Carlos, Richard Parkes Bonington (New York, 1980).