Click here to view exhibition...

Bacon Sisters

These sketches are the work of two sisters, Emma and Lucy Bacon, the granddaughters of Anthony Bacon, founder of the Cyfartha Iron Works in Merthyr Tydfil. The works date from the late 1820’s and are from a collection of some eighty surviving sketches produced by the sisters over a period of about two years.

Whilst many of the works are titled; only a few are signed and therefore attributable to either Lucy or Emma. The scenes depicted are mostly around Aberaman. However, there are works within the collection depicting other parts of Glamorgan.

They date from a time when the tremendous upsurge in interest in the British countryside was at its height and when works by topographical artists such as Gastineau, Hastings, Radclyffe, J.P. Neale and David Cox were being printed and published in prolific numbers.

This sudden interest in the British landscape came largely as a result of the wars of revolution in continental Europe and partly in the wake of the ‘Romantic’ movement of the eighteenth century. From the start of the eighteenth century right up to the Napoleonic Wars the ‘Grand Tour’ of Europe undertaken by the gentry had spawned much interest in the landscape and history of the continent. In was not uncommon for such travellers to produce a diary and sketchbook of their journeys or if lacking any artist talent to employ an artist to accompany them.

This all fell apart as conflict spread around Europe. Consequently, some of the wilder areas of Britain suddenly became popular destinations for these early ‘tourists’. Wales, a still remote land of castles, mysterious ruins, and rugged scenery was a particularly popular destination along with the Lake District. As well as a renewed interest in the landscape there was a corresponding rise in interest in the history of Britain and the prints were frequently published in works, which were part travel guide part antiquary.

Whilst the works produced by the Bacon Sisters were for their own enjoyment and were not published during their lifetime they still fall into this grand tradition of ‘romantic’ early nineteenth century topographical art. The sketches show a valley still largely untouched by the demands of heavy industry. Only the stacks of the Abernant Ironworks, which can be seen in the distance of several of their drawings, and which form the centrepiece of one sketch, hint at the extraordinary changes to come in the near future. What we see is a glimpse of a landscape little changed over the years. Wooded mountains, rivers and rich pasture. A landscape that prompted one traveller to describe the area in 1807 as being ‘one of the most fertile and beautiful in the mountains of Glamorgan’.

Click here to view exhibition...