Sepia ink washes and pencil on paper

Why we acquired this work

In 1974 Dr. Thomas Werner, the new gallery director of the Herbert, made a number of acquisitions of early views of industry by artists. This is one of those purchases.

Artists throughout the ages have found industial scenes to be rich and fascinating subject matter. Coventry is a major industrial city, so what more natural than that The Herbert should form a new collection on that theme?

The subject

We know that as early as 1776 artists like Paul Sandby were making dramatic images of iron works, and in 1780 the ironmaster Abraham Darby commissioned a painting of his revolutionary iron bridge.

Terrifying images of industry were sanctioned by the cult of the sublime, an art which used the dark and horror of such scenes in contrast with dramatic light effects.

By contrast this work looks at the mundane nature of industrial work, hauling up loads on primitive cranes, loading carts, and then, if this is coal, taking it for burning in cottage hearths. Smoke is shown rising from cottages in the distance.

Related works

Other works we collected in the 1970s as part of this city's industrial art collection include:

Lime Kiln by Moonlight, 1797-9, watercolour by Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Nant-y-Glo, Monmouthshire, engraving after Henry Gastineau (1791-1876).

Velocipede Nautique, print of an ingenious but possibly unsafe design for a bicycle to ride on the water.

Motor Company Works, Coventry, an early 20th century drawing of how a factory might appear when built.

Mill (man with large wheel), early 19th century watercolour by Thomas Hearne.

The Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale, around 1900, wash drawing by Michael 'Angelo' Rooker.