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Description

'A Winter View of the Cowthorpe Oak', near Wetherby, North Yorkshire signed lower right 'H Williams Delt.' pen and ink with watercolour on paper, unframed 28 x 42cm

Footnote: Literature: cf John Evelyn, Silva: Or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, York, 1776, 1st Hunter ed., vol. II, illus. between pp. 196-197 The present composition is based on the original drawing of Cowthorpe Oak by William Burgh, which was engraved by John Miller for Dr Alexander Hunter’s 1776 edition of John Evelyn’s Silva. The present watercolour may have been copied directly from that engraving. The Cowthorpe Oak was renowned for its great size and age, with a circumference of 60 feet, as reported in the Antiquary magazine in 1880. The tree was already in decline in the late 18th century, as depicted here. It finally fell in 1950 after being struck by lightning. It is today regarded as the largest girthed English oak ever recorded in Britain (see Julian Hight, Britain’s Tree Story: the History and Legends of Britain’s Ancient Trees, London, 2011, p. 28).

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