Signed: Albert Goodwin and inscribed Chambers Court, Winchester College

Watercolour with oil and pen and ink, 10 1/2 by 14 ins (27 by 36 cm)

Trained by the Pre-Raphaelite painters Arthur Hughes and Ford Madox Brown and championed by John Ruskin as one of the great landscape painters of his age, Goodwin’s atmospheric and powerful landscapes, cityscapes and seascapes are some of the most instantly identifiable of his age. He is arguably at his best in his intense evening subjects, like the present painting. In this view of Winchester he captures the moment just before dark on a brooding winter’s evening. The lights of a banquet in the school’s hall and the darkening moonlit sky shine through a painting that otherwise captures in extraordinary depth the oppressive dark of night.