Kenilworth Castle

The entrance to John of Gaunt's Great Hall is illustrated in this watercolour. Two other drawings 'The Ruins of Kenilworth Castle' and 'Ruins of Kenilworth Castle', both the same size as 'Kenilworth Castle', may have been exhibited with it at the Royal Academy in 1794. Rooker embarked upon a sketching tour of England and Wales late in 1788. He visited Norfolk, Suffolk, Warwickshire and Somerset among other places. He was particularly skilled at representing the varieties of architectural texture. From the 1780s onwards Rooker relied less on pencil drawing when composing his watercolours and instead worked solely in watercolour with his brush. His depictions of ruins often offer unusual views of familiar sites. In this watercolour he has emphasized the haystacks, farm animals and labourers rather than focusing on the bulding itself.