Old Buildings on the Darro, Granada

Old Buildings on the Darro, Granada
Artist	David Roberts
Year	1834
Type	Oil on panel, landscape painting
Dimensions	44.4 cm× 59.4 cm(17.5 in× 23.4 in)
Location	Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Old Buildings on the Darro, Granada is an 1834 oil painting by the British artist David Roberts. ^[1] A cityscape it features a view on the River Darro in Granada in the old Moorish medieval section of the city. ^[2] Roberts, who had made his reputation in the 1820s as a scenic designer for the London theatres, had visited Spain the previous year and spent three weeks in Granada. ^[3]

The work was displayed at the British Institution's annual exhibition in London in 1835 where it was described by the critic of The Athenaeum as "an exquisite thing". ^[3] It was donated to the nation in 1857 by the art collector John Sheepshanks and is today in the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. ^[4]

References

1. Boone p.29
2. Holland p.82
3. "Old Buildings on the Darro, Granada | Roberts, David (RA) | V&A Explore The Collections". collections.vam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2025-05-25.
4. "Old Buildings on the Darro, Granada". Art UK. Retrieved 2025-05-25.

Bibliography

• Boone, Mary Elizabeth. Vistas de España: American Views of Art and Life in Spain, 1860–1914. Yale University Press, 2007.
• Holland, Robert. The Warm South: How the Mediterranean Shaped the British Imagination. Yale University Press, 2018.
• Sim, Katherine. David Roberts R.A., 1796–1864: A Biography. Quartet Books, 1984.
• Wright, Christopher, Gordon, Catherine May & Smith, Mary Peskett. British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections: An Index of British and Irish Oil Paintings by Artists Born Before 1870 in Public and Institutional Collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Yale University Press, 2006.