Landscape, River Yare from Postwick

John Crome's long-time friend and brother-in-law, Robert Ladbrooke trained as a printer's apprentice and worked as a drawing master. He was one of the founders of the Norwich Society but left to form a breakaway group in 1816. Although Ladbrooke exhibited over two hundred paintings with the Society, today only a handful can be attributed to him.

This painting of the river Yare from Postwick, to the east of Norwich, has the appearance of a sketch made on the spot. The use of relatively thick impasto for highlights and shadows, in contrast to transparent glazes for the skies, shows Ladbrooke perhaps at his finest, displaying a freshness of palette not normally found in his early work and replica compositions.