Interior of the South Court

watercolor

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Impressionism Realism Classical Antiquity

Dominant colour

Interior of the South Court is a 22 watercolor by W. Wise, a Impressionism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: W. Wise
When & what style?: 22 · Impressionism
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This watercolour drawing is titled Interior of the South Court. It was created by artist W. Wise. The drawing shows a part of the interior of the South Court, which was built for displaying items on loan. This space had elaborate decorations, including mosaic panels and twisted columns. To learn more about the style and technique used in this drawing, look up the movement Impressionism.

The story of this work

Overview

This watercolour drawing depicts two bays of the upper interior wall of the double-height South Court (now Rooms 38 and 39) in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Each bay features paired round-headed niches framed by twisted columns, containing full-length mosaic portraits of famous artists, with wreath-fringed medallions in the central spandrels and painted festoons above. The left bay’s ceiling border displays a hexagon pattern in brown and gold, edged with pink, while the right bay’s equivalent strip is rendered in grey watercolour. Signed W. Wise, the work documents the original decorative…

Read the full account in the museum source.

About the artist

Artist

W. Wise

Welsh artist W. Wise painted a single watercolour on paper in 1871: Interior of the South Court, showing the glass-roofed court inside a public building. The sheet is small, precise, and mostly monochrome, with careful…

See the richer artist page