An Old Bridge at Hendon, Middlesex

A follower of John Constable, Watts exhibited widely as a landscapist but ceased painting around 1860. In this canvas, his meticulous attention to setting—as in the crumbling brickwork at the end of the bridge—is animated by sprightly figures: passersby on the road, a wader in the water, and a dog hovering at the stream’s edge. This painting is thought to have been sent by Watts to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1828. A second version of the subject is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; a third version is unlocated.

Credit: Gift of George A. Hearn, 1897