Rediscovery of a lost Eighteenth Century Sussex Artist
11 Aug 2010
It is a very rare event indeed when a celebrated eighteenth century artist, world renowned for his magnificent views of Regency Bath and Edinburgh, which now like Constable adorn place mats and chocolate boxes, is discovered to have been a forgotten artist of Georgian Sussex. This though is the case of John Claude Nattes, as Horsham Museum will show in its forthcoming temporary exhibition ‘Forgotten Views of Georgian Sussex: The drawings of John Claude Nattes.’
John Claude Nattes isn’t a name that to misquote a well known phrase "a man on the Horsham omnibus" would know of and it is his lack of recognition that the temporary exhibition will reveal is unwarranted, for Nattes was a drawing master for the gentry of the day and was a talented topographical artist who recorded in great detail the architectural features of the landscape that had seen a building boom. Against the exact recording of the buildings, Nattes would place a more romantic landscape and thus it is that Nattes drew the gates to Horsham Park House with a timber framed building beyond in 1792. He then dressed the scene with a wild windy gloss that matched the passion of the day, thus making it a commercial for the newly expanding art market.
This richly coloured watercolour, recently acquired by Horsham Museum with help from the Friends of Horsham Museum and the V&A Purchase grant fund, is the centrepiece of an exhibition that draws items from The Royal Collection, Hastings and Bath Museums and private collectors. As the exhibition will reveal, with views of Mr Aldridge’s house near Horsham, Slaugham place and church, and Sompting Church, Nattes visited Horsham and Sussex throughout the 1780s and ’90s. It is likely that he came to Horsham in 1784 to teach, for one sketch in an album now part of The Royal Collection housed at Windsor Castle is nicely titled View of Mr Aldridge’s near Horsham taken 30 Aug. in 1784 in Company with Mr W Blunt. Mr Blunt was the owner of Horsham’s Springfield House. These images have never been on display before and it is with permission of Her Majesty The Queen that Horsham Museum is able to display them for the first time.
The exhibition also borrows from Hasting museum seven views of the town which the museum bought with Art Collection Fund grant back in the 1930s. Never seen outside the town, they complement the scenes providing a rich selection of Sussex views, revealing Nattes’s skill and eye as a great topographical artist.
The exhibition runs from 9th September to 9th October 2010 and will also, thanks to a loan from Bath City Museum, display views of the Georgian city, views for which Nattes is known today. These scenes have been highly polished by the engraver, but just beneath the surface aquatint colouring lies the genius of Nattes. Showing as the exhibition does the sketches of Nattes, the finished watercolour of Horsham and the views of Bath, the display opens up to the visitor the world of late eighteenth century picturesque travel and art – the golden age when travellers could not visit the Continent owing to the war and they turned their gaze inward. In doing so they created a domestic travel industry that is still flourishing today.
For further information please contact Jeremy Knight, Curator and Heritage Officer.
Horsham Museum
9 Causeway Horsham
West Sussex
RH12 1HE
Tel: 01403 254959
email: museum@horsham.co.uk
web: www.horshammuseum.org