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Overview
David Charles Read (1790-1851) was one of the most fluent original etchers outside the Norwich School to be active in England between the years 1820 and 1845. Essentially a landscape artist, Read was born in Hampshire and was apprenticed to the eminent engraver John Scott (1774-1828). He lived and worked in Salisbury for most of his life, where he became well known as a drawing master. The majority of his printed works are landscapes, many depicting the countryside immediately surrounding the city of Salisbury and the nearby New Forest.
Read later told the British Museum of his contacts with 'the illustrious Göethe, whose sanction'd trust is sufficient to justify me in wishing that a collection of my works should be deposited in the museum of my country'. Read was also for a while a protégé of John Constable. However, their relationship soured after Read - still a young man - arguably abused Constable’s goodwill in relation to furthering the exhibition of his oil paintings in the main London shows. Possibly as a result of this, Read began to turn his attention away from oil painting during the mid 1820’s, concentrating more and more upon his particular forte for original printmaking, where he is represented in Te Papa by six works.
Perhaps a better printmaker than he was a painter, Read's open and confident etched works display a talented spontaneity and reveal the particular influence of Rembrandt and other 17th century Dutch practitioners. Besides this, Read was one of a small number of printmakers, along with Andrew Geddes and David Wilkie, to make extensive use of drypoint as an original printmaking technique, handing on the traditions of this important process to the mid Victorians. It we are looking for the origins of Seymour Haden's printmaking, Read (along with Rembrandt at a deeper level) would make a good candidate.
Read printed his own etchings and drypoints in groups, mostly between 1828 and 1845. Two volumes of proofs were presented to the British Museum by the artist as a reference collection of his works. His editions appear to have been very limited in numbers and examples are now rare.
This idyllic, romanticised scene looks ahead to the etchings of Read's younger contemporary, Samuel Palmer. Moonlight scenes were a particularly favourite theme of Read, though most of the examples in the British Museum depict recognisable motifs/areas such as Carisbrooke Castle or the Lake District. This etching/drypoint is less dark and dramatic than most of Read's others. It depicts a moonlit view by a lake or large pond, with two figures standing to the right of a well-established tree. A ride of low hills is visible in the distance. The print is titled 'The Hon. Sidney Herbert's "Moonlight"' by its former owner, Harold Wright, because either this one, or more likely another impression, was presented by the artist to the important Victorian politician Sidney Herbert (1810-61), a close ally and confidant of Florence Nightingale.
See:
British Museum, 'David Charles Read (Biographical details), https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=110311
Campbell Fine Art, 'David Charles Read...', http://www.campbell-fine-art.com/artists.php?id=167
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art November 2018