Richard Bankes Harraden (1778-1862), Christ Church from Merton Fields, Oxford

ABOUT THE ARTIST

(This text is printed on the back of the greeting card)

Richard Bankes Harraden was the son of the artist and engraver Richard Harraden (1756-1832) who lived in Paris until the eve of the French Revolution and then returned to England where he produced a series of paintings and engravings of Cambridge. Harraden made many of the drawings of Cambridge for his father’s work ‘Cantabrigia Depicta’ (1811). He also occasionally visited Oxford where he produced this fine painting of a view which can still be seen today almost unchanged. Painted from a position near Broad Walk at the south east corner of Merton Field, it shows Merton College and the tower of Merton College Chapel in the centre. On the left is Christ Church where Tom Tower, the largest and finest gate-tower in Oxford, can be seen alongside the tower of the smallest cathedral in England. On the right hand side of the painting, to the east of Merton College, is the tower of St Mary the Virgin and the dome of the Radcliffe Camera, which in 1863 became a reading room of the Bodleian Library.