The Dropping Well, Knaresborough

This is a view of the celebrated limestone well in Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, which solidifies objects placed underneath the dripping water. The artist, mainly a portrait painter, worked in Liverpool where he probably exhibited this picture in 1787. Daniel Daulby (1745/6 - 1798), who was a member of a well-known family of Liverpool brewers and an important collector, owned an oil painting of this subject by Chubbard (see Daniel Daulby, 'A Catalogue of the Books, Prints, Pictures and Drawings, 1793). Number 148 of the third volume of the 'Copper Plate Magazine' (1792 - 1803), engraved by J Walker after F Nicholson, is very close to this particular picture.