Roadside Halt

Set in Normandy, this canvas of 1826 is painted with a fluidity and lightness akin to watercolor, a medium in which Bonington excelled. Although the artist had been painting with oils for only about four years, works such as this were sufficiently remarkable to impress Eugène Delacroix, who wrote: "I could never weary of admiring his marvelous understanding of effects, and the facility of his execution."