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Sunset at Dresden by William Wyld

Born to a family that had produced rich merchants for several generations, he gained a pronounced taste for drawing very young. On the death of a young uncle (also good at drawing) after a fall from a horse when William was aged 6, William inherited his drawing materials. Aged 20, he lost his father but family relations allowed him to be made secretary to the British Consulate in Calais thanks to the statesman George Canning. There he served lord Granville and got to know the watercolourist François Louis Thomas Francia (an admirer of Thomas Girtin and a teacher of Richard Parkes Bonington), then living in Calais, and studied under him. When his family's protector, Canning, died on 8 August 1827 it became clear Wyld's diplomatic career could proceed no higher since he had interrupted his studies too soon. One of his friends was John Lewis Brown, active in commerce and also a major collector of Bonington's watercolours, and Brown gained him an opportunity to work as a wine merchant exporting champagne from Épernay to England. During periods of enforced leisure Wyld used the free time to draw and paint with his friend right across France, from Dieppe to Rouen and meeting Horace Vernet, then at the height of his fame