Washing Sheds at Chartres

Thomas Matthews Rooke was an English watercolour artist. He worked as a designer, and as an assistant to other artists. While working as studio assistant to the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, T.M. Rooke was seconded by Ruskin on several occasions during the 1880s to travel in France, Italy and Switzerland, making watercolour copies of mosaics, studies of Gothic architecture and scenes of traditional customs. Initially destined for the St. George’s Guild museum at Sheffield, this watercolour was so admired by Ruskin that he decided to keep it.