Croix de Moulin-les-Planches

Art Historical Context

Richard Parkes Bonington created this evocative lithograph in 1827, during the height of the Romantic era. A British artist who spent much of his brief career in France, Bonington was celebrated for his sensitive depictions of landscape and architecture. The title suggests a quiet rural scene centered on a wayside cross, a common feature in the French countryside that often marked pilgrimage routes or local history. Printed on chine collé paper, the work demonstrates lithography’s expressive potential in the early nineteenth century. This relatively new medium allowed artists to achieve soft tonal gradations and fine detail, making it ideal for capturing atmospheric effects of light and texture. Bonington’s print reflects the period’s growing interest in picturesque travel and the romantic appreciation of vernacular monuments. Now part of the National Gallery of Art’s Rosenwald Collection, the sheet preserves Bonington’s delicate handling of form and space, inviting viewers to appreciate both the spiritual resonance of the subject and the technical refinement of early lithographic practice.

About the Artist

Richard Parkes Bonington · 1802–1828

Richard Parkes Bonington (1802–1828) was a British painter and watercolorist who, despite dying at the age of twenty-five, produced a body of work that had a profound and lasting influence on French and British painting. Born in Arnold, near Nottingham, he moved with his family to Calais and then Paris in 1817, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under Antoine-Jean Gros and copied Old Mas...