Dinas Betws-Y-Coed

Location

Country: Other
City: other locations abroad

This highly evocative rocky landscape includes an array of grasses, wild flowers, mosses and shrubs. The Welsh word ‘Dinas’ means city, fortress or stronghold, while ‘Betws-y-Coed’ translates as ‘prayer house in the wood’ and is the name of a village in the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. In the 19th century the mountainous landscape around the village of Betws-y-Coed was a popular subject for artists such as Benjamin William Leader (1831–1923), Frederick Waters Watts (1800–1862) and David Cox (1783–1859). 

Frederick Henry Henshaw, landscape painter, came from Birmingham. His work was greatly influenced by J. M. W. Turner. By 1829, Henshaw was living at 13 Charlotte Street, London. Between 1837 and 1840 he travelled in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. However, his paintings are mostly British landscape views in the Midlands, Wales and Scotland. Henshaw exhibited in London at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, between 1829 and 1864. He also exhibited at the Birmingham Society of Artists. He occasionally collaborated with another painter, R. J. Hammond. Today, paintings by Henshaw are in the collections of Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery and Glasgow Art Gallery.

Places

Wales, Gwynedd, Snowdonia

Subjects

topography, landscape C19th, mountain, rock formation, stone/rock

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Frederick Henry Henshaw (1807 - 1891)

Title

Dinas Betws-Y-Coed

Date

1851

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 71.00 cm, width: 91.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Christie's, 15 October 1976

Inscription

br: F. H. Henshaw / Dinas Betwys-y-Coed / N. Wales / 1851.

Provenance

Sold though Christie's, London, 'Fine Victorian Pictures' sale, on 15 October 1976 (Lot 187), as 'Dinas Bettws-Y-Coed'; from which sale purchased by the Department of the Environment

GAC number

12495