Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding

Large and highly detailed exhibition watercolors like this seascape were a specialty of Anthony Vandyke

Copley Fielding, perhaps the most prolific and commercially successful watercolor painter of his generation.

This view of the chalk cliffs below Culver Down on the Isle of Wight uses many of his favorite

technical tricks, such as subtle scraping on the paper surface to reveal white highlights and blotting

with bread to create the mottled texture of the clouds. By repeating these formulae, Fielding learned

to work quickly and satisfy the public demand for his work, consistently outselling contemporaries like

David Cox, whose work appears to the far left. Serving as President of the Society of Painters in Water

Colours for over three decades, Fielding exhibited a total of 1,748 watercolors during his lifetime.