
Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
Sold for £43,750 inc. premium
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Provenance
Revd. T. Case
Sale, Sotheby's, London, 15 July 1999, lot 97, where purchased by the present owner
Engraved
W & L. Byrne, Donnington Castle, taken from a field adjoining the Road to East Ilsley, from Newbury, engraved for Britannia Depicta, 1805
Literature
A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W Turner, p. 335, no. 311
The manor of Donnington was held by the Abberbury family from 1287, and in 1386 Richard Abberbury the Elder was granted 'to crenellate and fortify a castle at Donyngton, Berks' by Richard II.
During the Civil War Charles I set up his headquarters in Oxford and in 1643 dispatched Sir John Boys, with 200 foot soldiers, to take possession of Donnington from the Parliamentarian John Packer. Having taken the castle, they succeeded in guarding the major routeways from London to the West Country and Oxford to Southampton. Between 1644 and 1646 the castle was attacked many times, only once the Royalist cause appeared hopeless did Boys surrender to the Parliamentarian troops. Parliament voted to demolish the badly damaged castle in 1646 and as seen from this watercolour only the substantial gatehouse remains.