Swansea Bay

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Wales Office, Gwydyr House, Whitehall

This view of Swansea Bay in South Wales, painted in 1850, shows the Gower Peninsula, designated an area of outstanding natural beauty in 1956. At the time this picture was made, the town was the most flourishing sea-port in Wales, a fashionable watering place and manufacturing base.

The picture shows, on the hill to the right, the ruined castle at Oystermouth close to Mumbles Head. Its hall, main apartments and chapel, built in the late 13th century still stand today. This viewpoint was a popular one with artists including William Daniell, who admired the magnificent view over the Bay from Oystermouth Castle, describing it in his Voyage round Great Britain (1714-1525) as having ‘a plain, simple strength about it, which combined with its commanding situation, gives it an air of considerable majesty’. 

To the left of the castle snuggling behind a slope are a small group of houses in Oystermouth, which Daniell described as ‘a neat little village, close to the sea, and so sheltered by the high land about it, as to receive little benefit from the sun except its light. There is a boarding-house here for strangers, who prefer rocks and seclusion to the noise and glare of Swansea, but the village is principally inhabited by fishermen. This part of the bay abounds with fish, and particularly with a very small kind of oyster, which is in high repute.’

Places

Wales, Oystermouth Castle, Swansea, The Mumbles, Swansea Bay, Bristol Channel

Subjects

genre, seascape/coastal scene, grass, tree, sheep, fire, stone/rock, shore, sea, beach, Welsh, man, woman, 19th century costume, castle, ruin, sailboat, ship

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

William Butler (1824 - 1870)

Title

Swansea Bay

Date

1850

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 71.50 cm, width: 107.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Appleby Bros, February 1973

Inscription

br: Butler 1850

Provenance

With Appleby's; from whom purchased by the Department of the Environment in February 1973, as by Richard Butler

GAC number

10006