Byloke, Ghent
Medium
lithograph
Dimensions
image: 26.8 x 37 cm (10 9/16 x 14 9/16 in.) sheet: 37.1 x 54 cm (14 5/8 x 21 1/4 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection
Accession Number
2002.72.2
Art Historical Context
Thomas Shotter Boys’s 1839 lithograph *Byloke, Ghent* captures the serene courtyard and Gothic architecture of the historic Bijloke complex in Ghent, Belgium. A leading British topographical artist of the early nineteenth century, Boys specialized in luminous architectural views that appealed to both travelers and armchair tourists. Working in lithography—a relatively new printmaking medium prized for its ability to reproduce delicate tonal gradations—he achieved a remarkable sense of light and texture that rivals watercolor. Printed on a sheet measuring roughly 37 by 54 centimeters, the imag...
About the Artist
Thomas Shotter Boys · 1803–1874
Thomas Shotter Boys was born on 2 January 1803 in Pentonville, London, and received his first professional training as an apprentice to the engraver George Cooke. When his apprenticeship concluded he crossed the Channel to Paris, a move that would transform his artistic direction entirely. There he encountered Richard Parkes Bonington, the brilliant English watercolourist whose fresh, luminous ren...