Jasper Cropsey based this view of England's most famous prehistoric site on sketches he had made during a tour of Europe 27 years earlier. The painting's warm palette and relatively loose brushwork create a moody, romantic glow. Stonehenge is part of a series Cropsey executed of Old World ruins, which remained popular subjects among 19th-century American collectors.
Cropsey employed a technique called pouncing so that he could use drawings as guides for a painting. Tiny holes are pricked into the paper along the drawn lines and then the paper is placed over the canvas. The pricked drawing is rubbed with charcoal, leaving transferred dotted lines on the surface below. The remnants of Cropsey's method are only visible under infrared light.
