Samuel Prout was an artist who, in his day, was considered to be among the greatest of the English Watercolour School. Ruskin became a champion, praising Prout’s drawings for “their magnificent certainty and ease and their firmness of line.” Ruskin was referring to the drawings on which, in Victorian times, Prout’s fame depended. His rendering of Continental Gothic architecture, gabled buildings, town squares and, above all, cathedrals, were enlivened by many figures.
Prout was lucky in his schooling in Plymouth, for his headmaster, the Rev Dr Bidlake, encouraged his art, and Benjamin Robert Haydon was a fellow pupil. Through Haydon’s father, Prout met John Britton and was asked to provide drawings for the history books, The Beauties Of England And Wales.
Later, staying with Britton in London, Prout studied perspective…
