Samuel Prout

Samuel Prout capitalized on the popular taste for the aging, picturesque architecture of Europe by making several trips to the Continent to paint and thereafter produce books containing lithographic reproductions of his watercolors. He created this landscape for the 1833 volume, "Facsimiles of Sketches made in Flanders and Germany." As was characteristic, he drew the contours of his buildings with a reed pen, trying to capture the picturesque decay of the scene with abrupt, broken lines. His technique exhibits a careful attention to the balance between contour and application of color.