Thomas Sewell Robins (1810 1880) "Talking in a Yard, Geneva"

Watercolour on paper
41 x 31 cm (16 1/8 x 12 1/4 in), as executed
Signed and inscribed T. S. Robins, Geneva, and dated, lower left

Presented in a fine period giltwood frame
Thomas Sewell Robins was born in Devonport, Devon, on 8 May 1810 and died on 9 August 1880. He was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools on 22 April 1829 under the sponsorship of his fellow Devonian James Northcote, a former pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His professor of painting was Thomas Phillips, and his lecturer in perspective was none other than J. M. W. Turner, an early influence that would shape his lifelong sensitivity to atmosphere and light.

Robins is best remembered today as one of the foremost marine and coastal painters of his generation, working principally in watercolour and occasionally in oil. He was elected to the New Watercolour Society in 1839, where he exhibited no fewer than 317 works before his resignation in 1866, and he also showed regularly at the Royal Academy, the British Institution, the Suffolk Street Galleries and the Royal Society of British Artists.

Beyond his celebrated marine subjects, Robins travelled extensively on the Continent throughout his career, journeys that fed a parallel and highly accomplished body of architectural and genre work. His itinerary included France in 1842, Holland and Italy in 1845, the Mediterranean around 1850, Holland and the Rhine in 1857, France again in 1858 and Antwerp in 1859. The present watercolour, a Genevan courtyard scene populated with figures in local dress gathered beneath a timber balcony, belongs to this continental strand of his output and demonstrates the same close observation and delicate atmospheric handling that distinguish his marine work.

The sheet is inscribed with the title Talking in a Yard, Geneva and carries a label from C. S. Studios, Fine Art Picture Restorers of Torquay, Devon, recording the artist, title, medium and dimensions, together with an earlier reference clipping identifying Robins as a landscape and marine painter active in London whose watercolours are held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Art Gallery of Australia in Sydney and the Uffizi in Florence.

A charming and well documented example of Robins's continental genre work, combining his celebrated draughtsmanship with the picturesque architectural vernacular of old Geneva.