Roy’s Roadss

The road-network from William Roy’s Military Survey of Scotland. 1747

Paul Sandby 1725-1809



Considered the father of English watercolour painting, Paul Sandby’s  career spanned 50 years, a period of history from the Jacobite rebellion to the Napoleonic wars.  At the age of 22, he was the appointed draughtsman on the production of the Military Map. 


Sandby had a meticulous eye for detail, having turned his early cartographer career to the painting of landscapes.   In 1752, he took up a post with his brother producing landscapes of the royal estates at Windsor (the royal collection includes over 500 images by the Sandby brothers, most of which remain in the royal collections.) In 1768 he became a founder member of the Royal Academy. Thomas Gainsborough recommended Paul Sandby  as the  only contemporary English landscape artist who painted 'real views from nature'. Art historians have described Sandby as the first artist to fully understand and express the picturesque, but he has also been criticised for representing the prevailing conservatism in English watercolours.

Last updated Nov.2020