A colour pencil and watercolour still life by Thomas Remnant Charleton (1756-1849)
A colour pencil and watercolour still life by Thomas Remnant Charleton (1756-1849)
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Depicting a butterfly among a vase of flowers. This watercolour is unfinished and likely one of his final works before his death in May 1849, aged 93.
England, circa 1849
Provenance: The Charleton family
Thomas Remnant Charleton was a consummate artist, devoting his last decade to painting exquisite watercolours during his retirement in Lansdown Crescent, Bath. This still life of flowers in a vase shows his painstaking attention to detail and his skill at bringing alive the natural world through pencil and paint.
But hitherto his life had been one of challenge and courage, blighted by war and discomfort overseas.
Thomas had fought in the major battles of the American War of Independence, embarking from Ireland in 1775 to fight for England under the command of Marquis Cornwallis. He had been with General Howe at Staten Island and the taking of New York. He was in the infamous battle of White Plains where the British were victorious, and at Rhode Island (the first state to declare independence, in 1776). He fought in the crucial Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777), which led to the British occupying Philadelphia, and was employed on the batteries at the taking of Mud Island on the Delaware. He also served in the campaign of South Carolina and was at the taking and evacuation of Charleston (1780-82).
Thomas endured the bitter cold of the Hudson River expedition in 1777, part of the fleet forging a way up the waterway once the ice had thawed. In 1792 he was sent to command a garrison in what is now north-eastern Canada, in Newfoundland, wild, remote and with a bitterly hostile climate.
By 1799 he was Lieutenant General, appointed to the command of the artillery in British North America under His Royal Highness, The Duke of Kent, arriving in Nova Scotia in June 1800.
In 1837, by now General Charleton, he retired to Bath, where he could lose himself in his painting, in stark contrast to the deprivations of his former professional life.
His work was collected into a portfolio, passing by descent through the family, and unseen until now.
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. He fought in the crucial Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777), which led to the British occupying Philadelphia, and was employed on the batteries at the taking of Mud Island on the Delaware. He also served in the campaign of South Carolina and was at the taking and evacuation of Charleston (1780-82). Thomas endured the bitter cold of the Hudson River expedition in 1777, part of the fleet forging a way up the waterway once the ice had thawed. In 1792 he was sent to command a garrison in what is now north-eastern Canada, in Newfoundland, wild, remote and with a bitterly hostile climate. By 1799 he was Lieutenant General, appointed to the command of the artillery in British North America under His Royal Highness, The Duke of Kent, arriving in Nova Scotia in June 1800. In 1837, by now General Charleton, he retired to Bath, where he could lose himself in his painting, in stark contrast to the deprivations of his former professional life. His work was collected into a portfolio, passing by descent through the family, and unseen until now.){kind=link}