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Hobson's Conduit, Cambridge

Golden

1940

watercolor

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Early Modern Fountain

Dominant colour

Hobson's Conduit, Cambridge is a 1940 watercolor by Golden, depicting Fountain, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: Golden
When & what style?: 1940
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This sketch shows a small, ornate fountain in a garden. The fountain has a square base with carvings of shells and a decorated top. Around it, there’s a pool with a few leaves floating on the water. In the background, you can see trees and a few faint figures near a railing. The painting looks like it was done quickly, with loose brushstrokes and light colors. The fountain itself is the main focus, but the artist didn’t spend much time on details. If you like this, check out the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The story of this work

Overview

A watercolour signed by Golden from 1940 depicts Hobson's Conduit in Cambridge, showing its hexagonal structure on a plinth. The work was created as part of the Recording Britain project, a wartime initiative led by Sir Kenneth Clark to document the British landscape and national identity during the Second World War. Funded by the Pilgrim Trust and administered by the Committee for the Employment of Artists in Wartime, the scheme commissioned artists to record buildings, rural scenes, and monuments, primarily in England. The resulting collection of over 1,500 works aimed to preserve a record…

Read the full account in the museum source.

About the artist

Artist

Golden

Golden painted quiet corners you’ve walked past a hundred times. In the 1940s, while everyone chased bigger dramas, he set up his watercolours on Cambridge doorsteps and let the city’s brick and sky do the talking. Look…

See the richer artist page