River Brain, Witham
1940
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1940
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
River Brain, Witham is a 1940 watercolor by H. E. Du Plessis, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This watercolour shows a quiet Essex scene by the River Brain near Witham. Painted around 1940, it mixes old cottages with modern phone lines. The artist worked outdoors, leaving ragged paper edges where it tore from a sketchbook. Du Plessis didn’t hide the changes around him. While others smoothed over progress, he kept the wires visible. Look up the artist next: Du Plessis, H. E.
A watercolour by H. E. Du Plessis from 1940 depicts the River Brain flowing through a meadow near Witham, Essex, under a sunny sky. The scene includes a post-and-wire fence along the right bank and visible telephone poles and wires on the left, reflecting signs of modern progress. The top edge shows the ragged tear from a sketchbook’s spiral binding, indicating the work was likely painted on-site. The piece is part of the *Recording Britain* collection, documenting British landscapes during the Second World War.
Read the full account in the museum source.
A South Wales watercolor artist active around 1940, H. E. Du Plessis painted the everyday buildings and lanes of Glamorganshire. Brush in hand, he recorded places like the low stone Jesus Hospital in Bray and the…
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