Show focuses on "neglected" British painter Sandby

Sandby sold those prints for three shillings through a London dealer, offering the middle- or upper-class buyer something out of the ordinary to purchase.

In another series of 12 works, his 1776 "XII Views in North Wales," Sandby uses a technique of etching on to a copper plate with resin and acid to make his prints.

"The Iron Forge," one of the series, shows a stream and mill generating power and churning smoke into the air, and the dramatic effect suggested that for Sandby, industry and agriculture were fitting subjects for an artist.

"This would have been a remarkably modern image for its time, both in terms of technique and subject matter," the Academy said, adding that its movement and atmosphere recalled the artists of successors like J.M.W. Turner.

Sandby continued to produce pictures of ruins, estates, parklands and streets into old age, but by 1808, the year before his death, he asked the Academy for a pension "owing to advanced age and infirmities and failure of employment."

Although superceded by a new generation of artists whose works examined the effects of light and movement rather than stressing accuracy in detail, the exhibition underlines how Sandby helped cultivate a market for British landscapes, and, more specifically, for watercolours.

"Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain" runs from March 13-June 13 in the Sackler Wing.

(Editing by Steve Addison)