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Catalog summary

William Callow WILLIAM CALLOW (BRITISH 1812-1908) ST. GOARHAUSEN ON THE RHINE signed and dated Wm Callow 1861 lower left watercolour over pencil on paper 27 x 69.5cm; 10 1/2 x 27in 48.5 x 90cm; 19 x 35 1/2in (framed) Property from a Private Collector, Oxford Provenance Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd., London Acquired from the above by the present owner The present lot depicts a view of Sankt Goar in the Rhine region, Germany; a vista that William Callow would repeatedly return to throughout his extensive career. Callow's first visit to Switzerland and Germany was in 1838, before returning in 1861-2 for a second sketching tour to Coburg, Potsdam and Berlin, during which time the present watercolour was executed. Callow’s watercolours satisfied the growing demand for travel imagery depicting scenic views and picturesque corners of European cities. Over the course of his long career, Callow’s working methods and choice of subjects barely changed, and his extensive oeuvre represents the final expression of the early nineteenth-century topographic watercolour tradition. From the 1830s until the early years of the twentieth century Callow exhibited annually at the Society of Painters in Water Colours, and in 1907, at the age of 95, he attended his own retrospective exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in London.