Garden Scene at Bowling Hall, near Bradford

This watercolour showing part of the garden at Bowling Hall, near Bradford in Yorkshire, was painted on paper around 1820 by the miniaturist artist Emma Eleonora Kendrick (c. 1788 – 1871). It depicts a man tending a standard shrub in a walled garden with formal square flower beds to one side, with an arbour opposite. A spade, rake, roller and watering can surround the gardener. Two bee hives sit on a raised platform next to wrought-iron gates with a church tower, trees, pottery kilns and chimneys in the distance.
Emma Eleonora Kendrick was the daughter of a sculptor, Joseph Kendrick. She exhibited at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists. Her book ‘Conversations on the Art of Miniature Painting’ appeared in 1830. Dating from the 14th century, Bowling Hall is the oldest surviving building in Bradford and became a museum in 1915.
Purchased in 2013 under the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Collecting Cultures scheme.