Ink washes on paper

Why we acquired this work

For The Herbert, Bree's works are doubly appropriate - they show views of Warwickshire, and thus belong in the 'Warwickshire Watercolours Collection', and also he is a local artist.

But really who could resist the chance to acquire a view as spontaneous, fresh and full of life as this? This work is the culmination of Bree's artistic development.This view and its companion piece were the first views by Bree which the Herbert acquired.

The Artist

The Reverend William Bree was one of the very best of the early amateur painters. He was born at Allesley near Coventry on 10 January 1754, son of Rev. Thomas Bree and Ann (nee Blencowe). He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and on 7 August 1783 married Elizabeth Mallory. He died on 22 November 1822.

He succeeded his elder brother (and his father before him) as Rector of Allesley in 1808. He is recorded as having been Curate at Great Packington (the private chapel of Lord Aylesford, his college artist-friend) between 1795 and 1799. He was Vicar at Bickenhill 1779-1822.

On 27 April 1808 the Bishop of Peterborough also granted him a licence to absent him from his benefice of Marston St. Lawrence near Brackley, Northants.

Bree shares with Sir George Beaumont the claim to be the greatest of the amateur painters - amateurs in the old sense of the word, achievement for the love of it, not as a trade. Despite his spiritual work he clearly had time to devote to artistic pursuits.

The Place of Bree in Art

Again we show a watercolour by Rev. Bree, but this one is very different in style from the immaculately shaded interior of Charterhouse and the restrained wash drawing of Maxstoke Priory we featured before.If we did not know that this was by Bree and therefore painted before 1822, we might be forgiven for thinking that this had been painted in the 20th century, with Impressionism as an unspoken background to the artist's experience of the appearance of the world.

Bree is a local artist for us at Coventry, and one of whom we are rightly proud. Through these three watercolours we see what a a great artistic journey he undertook - he was in the vanguard of those who were changing the way we see the world.

Other works by the artist in The Herbert

The Herbert holds a folio of watercolours and a number of views in various styles and from different stages of the Reverend Bree's artistic development.

This is one of two small views painted in a similar manner acquired at the same time.