Prout (1783-1852) painted scenes of European cities for Victorian audiences, and these scenes will be shown in A Grand Tour in Watercolour featuring more than 20 of the works.
“Prout’s pictures of European cities are not just journeys in space, they are journeys in time,” says the exhibition’s curator Timothy Wilcox, an independent scholar. “The Victorian public adored him for suggesting that the world they had lost, submerged in the grime of Britain’s industrial cities, was no more than a train ride away.”
The exhibition was put together with the help of British watercolour specialist John Spink, a BADA member and regular exhibitor at the fair, along with the help of several private collectors.
Fine art has had increasing representation at the annual BADA Fair in recent years.
There are a series of special events planned for the trade association in the lead up to its 100th anniversary in 2018.
A loan exhibition is a regular feature of the fair. However, organisers point out that many of the works sourced from private collections have not been seen for more than 50 years.
Wilcox added: “Lovers of Prout’s work will never see this idea better represented than in these works."
