Drovers near Barden Castle on the Wharfe, Yorkshire

Barden Castle, a few miles north west of Skipton, and set in the middle of dense woodland above the River Wharfe, was one of David Cox's favourite subjects. He exhibited a watercolour entitled 'Barden Castle, from Bolton Park, Yorkshire', in 1836 (see N. N. Solly, Memoir of the Life of David Cox, 1873, p. 323). Cox's inscription on the back of the present picture suggests that he might have exhibited it without any reference to the foreground group. As a consequence it is not possible to match it with any particular Barden view shown at the Old Water-Colour Society during his lifetime. The picture may well be the one listed as Barden Tower, with Cattle on a Road in the Peter Allen sale of 6 March 1869 (Solly, op. cit., p. 329). Allen owned an important collection of Cox's work, and was a lender of works by Cox to the Leeds National Fine-Arts Exhibition in 1868.