Object Image

A View on the Island of Antigua: the English Barracks and Saint John's Church Seen from the Hospital

In 1771 Thomas Hearne, just out of his apprenticeship to an engraver, began working for Sir Ralph Payne, the recently appointed governor-general of the Leewards, a group of sugar colonies consisting of Antigua, Nevis, St. Christopher’s (now St. Kitts), and Montserrat. Hearne spent three and a half years making working drawings and, after his return to England in 1775, produced twenty large and highly finished watercolors for Payne, of which only eight are now known. This watercolor depicts St. John’s at Antigua, the traditional center of government for the Leewards, where Payne had taken up residence. After a major slave insurrection in Antigua in 1736, the colonial government had petitioned su...
c. 1775
Watercolor and black ink over graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream laid paper
51.4 x 73.7cm
B1993.30.78
Digital image courtesy Yale Center for British Art; free to use under the Center's Image Terms of Use

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Yale Center for British Art
Permanent collection