Lot 127: A mountainous wooded river landscape with figures in the foreground and a castle, possibly St. Briavels, on the Wye

Thomas Jones (Trevonen, Powys 1742-1803 Pencerrig, Powys) A mountainous wooded river landscape with figures in the foreground and a castle, possibly St. Briavels, on the Wye with signature and date '1772' (lower left) oil on canvas 15½ x 25½ in. (39.4 x 64.7 cm.)

Thomas Jones was the son of a Welsh landowner. In 1759, he entered William Shipley's art school in the Strand, London, and later attended the St. Martin's Lane Academy, enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools in 1769. He studied under the landscape painter Richard Wilson, a fellow Welshman, and was elected to the Society of Artists in 1766, working for the next ten years as a professional artist in London. He made return visits to his Welsh homeland in 1772 spending four months there, during which time he recorded that he made 'a good many Studies in Oil on paper' (Memoirs, p.27). This picture may have been adapted from one of these studies. It has been suggested that it depicts St. Briavels Castle, on the Wye. Jones is known to have painted pictures inspired by specific scenes, though they were not intended to be topographically accurate.