Irun, from the Bidassoa, Spain

Irun, from the Bidassoa, Spain 

David Roberts, circa 1833-1836 

Watercolour 

The Bidassoa estuary is one of the first landscapes that Roberts saw after crossing the Pyrenees in the autumn of 1832. This undated watercolour was probably painted later in his London studio, based on a drawing he had made on the spot. It comprises a view across the water towards the town of Irún. The picturesque architecture and human activity in the foreground suggest a traditional way of life.   

Along with another twenty of Roberts’s drawings of Spain, this view was published as an engraved plate in the third volume of Thomas Roscoe’s popular travelogue, The Tourist in Spain. Biscay and the Castiles, published by Jennings & Co in London in 1837. Roberts’s signature, which is visible on the stern of one of the boats in this watercolour, was replaced with ‘Le Fidelle’ in the engraved version.  

Nineteenth-century viewers associated the Bidassoa with the Peninsular War. It was here that Arthur Wellesley’s army of British, Spanish and Portuguese soldiers crossed the river on 7 October 1813 and secured a decisive victory over the French, paving the way for the end of the Napoleonic occupation in 1814. 

David Roberts transformed his numerous sketches of Spanish buildings and towns into engravings, fine art lithographs, and large-format paintings. They brought him international renown. His beginnings had been humble. Born in Edinburgh in 1796, the son of shoemaker, he initially trained as a house painter before developing a career as a scene painter in the theatres in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London in the 1820s. He also travelled in Scotland, Belgium, France and Germany to gather material for easel pictures. It was Roberts’s friend and fellow Scot, Sir David Wilkie, a genre painter who had toured Spain in 1827-28, who encouraged Roberts to make the journey too, as ‘Spain’ remained to be discovered by a landscape painter. 

Title: Irun, from the Bidassoa, Spain. 

Author/Artist: David Roberts (1796-1864). 

Technique and Material:  Watercolour on paper.  

Dimensions: 280 x 435 mm. 

Published: n/a. 

Date: circa 1833-36. 

Marks and Inscriptions: ‘Roberts’ on the stern of one of the boats; title as above in pencil on mount with artist’s name given as ‘G Roberts’; on reverse, title as above in ink with ‘Spain’ added in pencil and artist’s name given as ‘G Roberts’; top right-hand corner of reverse: ‘17 by 11 Sight Size of Mount’; bottom right-hand corner of reverse: ‘30/-‘. 

Institution: Barry Ife Collection.