The Gatehouse of Battle Abbey, Sussex

Each summer Rooker went on walking tours around parts of Britain, seeking out ruins and historical sites to portray. He took particular interest in the meticulous depiction of specific buildings, in this case the imposing fourteenth-century gatehouse of Battle Abbey in Sussex.

He regularly exhibited the results of his ramblings at the Royal Academy. This particular painting of Battle Abbey (he made a few) was almost certainly in our galleries in 1792. There, it was seen by the young J.M.W. Turner RA who made two watercolour studies of its details, emulating Rooker's technique for depicting dappled light and the texture of crumbling masonry. Those studies are now in the Tate Britain collection.