Thomas Cooper Moore

Available for sale from Big Sky Fine Art in the English county of Dorset, this original painting is by the Nottinghamshire artist Thomas Cooper Moore and dates from around the 1880s.<br> The watercolour is presented and supplied in a sympathetic frame and mount (which is shown in these photographs) and behind glass dating from about the 1980s.<br> There is evidence of an old fold in the paper that runs vertically through the right-hand structure of the castle. This has been virtually eliminated by pressure and gentle heat in a press, addressed in the 1980s when the artwork was framed. This piece is now ready to hang and display.<br> The watercolour is signed lower left.<br> <br> Thomas Cooper Moore was a talented Victorian watercolourist and pen and ink artist. He was largely self-taught and indeed passed on his skills as he taught his three sons, who all became artists. Of them, his eldest Claude T.S. Moore (1853-1901) was the most proficient. <br> <br> Thomas Cooper Moore was born in Nottingham in humble circumstances in 1827. He was initially apprenticed to a Nottingham firm of printers but later moved to London, where he painted many scenes on the Thames. During the 1850s and 1860s he travelled extensively in the Midlands and South of England, producing a number of highly regarded agricultural and landscape views. He later returned to Nottingham and concentrated on landscapes in the surrounding areas. His work was exhibited in Sheffield, Nottingham, Birmingham and London, including at the Royal Academy. Despite his obvious talent and prolific work ethic Thomas Cooper Moore sadly came on hard times and spent his later years eking out a living selling his paintings around the town for a few shillings each. He died a poor man in 1901. <br> <br> Today, there is an example of his work in the Nottingham Castle Museum (showing the East Front of the Castle itself). A number of the drawings and watercolours of Thomas Cooper Moore are also housed in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. <br> <br> © Big Sky Fine Art<br> <br> This is a piece of history indeed, a view of Nottingham Castle and surroundings painted in the Victorian era. There has been a castle in this location since the Middle Ages. The Castle stands proud upon its sandstone cliff, known as Castle Rock, overlooking the city below, where we see the factories and chimneys of the industrial revolution. At the foot of the cliff there are a cluster of buildings, many of which are still there today. One of these is Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem, which claims to be the oldest pub in England. Castle Rock is home to a network of ancient caves, an intrinsic part of the city’s history. To the left of the scene we see the early grand houses of the exclusive area known as The Park Estate. In the foreground there are meadows with a path running through, and figures walking, in the dress of the day. The palette is subdued and pleasing.