19th Century Norwich School Landscape Painting Norwich Cathedral

Artist: Unknown artist, Norwich School
Title: Norwich Cathedral from Riverside
Medium: Oil on Paper
Date: c1820

This unusual view of Norwich Cathedral was likely taken from the bend of the River Ware past Whitefriars Bridge. Though the riverbank is now the site of the County and Magistrates court, the painting shows a picturesque wooded scene with a single red-roofed house and two figures fishing in the foreground.

Influenced by the landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age, the Norwich School lived and worked during the period of John Constable and JMW Turner and like those totemic figures, they anticipated the impressionism that would dominate western landscape painting during the next century.

Their comparative obscurity is likely because their works were acquired by a single Victorian collector, who put them on permanent display in Norwich Castle Museum in the 1880s -before they could be displayed in London or dispersed to a wider public.


Size (Frame): 33 x 27.5 x 1.5cm
Size (Image): 14.5 x 10.5cm (5¾ x 4¼”)
Weight: 689g