[Born at Stone, Staffordshire, Jan. 21, 1784; apprenticed to John Raphael Smith, 1802; student R. A. Schools, 1809; Associate, Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1810, member, 1811, and 1825; died at 40 Upper Gower Street, June 30, 1849. EXHIBITED: Royal Academy, 1807, ’11, ’13-’15, ’19, ’20, ’28; British Institution, 1808, ’13-’17, ’21, ’24; Associated Artists, 1808, ’09; Society of Painters in Water-Colours, 1810-’15, ’25-’49. WORKS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES: V. and A. Museum (Oil and Water-Colours); British Museum; National Galleries of Scotland and Ireland; Manchester Whitworth Institute; Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Bury, Norwich, Nottingham Art Galleries, etc. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES: Sir Walter Armstrong’s “Peter De Wint,” 1888; Roget’s “History,” etc.; “D. N. B.” REPRODUCTIONS: Armstrong’s “De Wint”; “Masters of English Landscape Painting” (THE STUDIO Special Summer Number, 1903).] De Wint’s work may be described as a cross between that of Girtin and Cotman. Girtin was his first source of inspiration. From him he learned the value of breadth of effect and simplicity of design. From Cotman he learned to distil his colour harmonies from Nature. As a draughtsman he was less of a mannerist than Girtin, and he had not Cotman’s marvellous feeling for the beauties of abstract design. De Wint had Dutch blood in his veins, and he had a good deal of the Dutchman’s solidity of character and stolid realism. His drawings always look like bits of real life. They are nearer to the common experience of Nature than either Turner’s, Cozens’, Girtin’s, or Cotman’s works. But his homely realism is always restrained by his respect for the medium he worked in and by his innate sense of style. His work is well represented in the Victoria and Albert Museum by drawings like _Bray on the Thames, from the Towing Path_, _Hayfield_, _Yorkshire_, and _Westmoreland Hills, bordering the Ken_, all lent to that Museum from the National Gallery; and of his famous works in private collections we may mention _Cookham-on-Thames_, recently in the Beecham Collection, _The Thames from Greenwich Hill_, once in the collection of James Orrock, and _Near Lowther Castle_. For all his “objectivity,” his steadiness of poise, his calm strength of character, De Wint’s work is intensely personal and original. The number of admirers of his manly and felicitous work has steadily increased since his death, and can only go on increasing as the public gets more opportunities of seeing his noble works with their superb mosaic of rich, deep, and harmonious colour. RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON