Pegwell Bay, Kent - a Recollection of October 5th 1858

Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 depicts the landscape at Pegwell Bay, on the east coast of Kent. Considered a Pre-Raphaelite work, Dyce employs a mode of heightened realism and intricate detail to create a powerful landscape. It is considered to be Dyce's best painting, and is held by the Tate Gallery. The painting was inspired by a visit by the Dyce family to Pegwell Bay in August 1857. Pegwell Bay is a shallow inlet on the coast of Kent between Ramsgate and Sandwich, at the estuary of the River Stour, Kent. It was a popular Victorian holiday destination, with tea gardens and donkey rides. The bay was also a popular place for fossil hunters. In the painting, the tide has gone out, revealing a flat expanse of sand, pools of water, rocks, and algae. Standing separately the foreground are Dyce's son with a spade looking out to sea, his wife, and her two sisters, collecting shells and fossils on the beach. The women are wrapped in shawls against the cool of the autumn evening. Smaller figures are hunting in rock pools in the background, with taking a ride on a donkey. A male figure to the right, carrying artist's materials and looking up at the cliff, may be a self-portrait of Dyce himself. The setting sun gives the cliffs and beach a pink glow, but the scene remains bleak. Dyce was a keen geologist, and the strata of the cliffs behind the beach are carefully delineated. A white streak in the sky is Donati's Comet. Dyce made initial studies on the beach, en plein air. A small watercolour study was made in 1857 but the completed oil painting depicts a later time in the evening then in the study; Dyce also adds his family in the foreground of the final painting, and moves the date one year to include the comet.