FOR ARTISTS, TRAVEL HAS long been a powerful source of inspiration, but in the early nineteenth century it became something more. The mountains, coasts and landscapes of rural Britain were already feeding romantic longings for nature and the sublime, and the advent of the railways in the 1840s made those landscapes much more accessible. In addition, as William Vaughan has written: ‘There really was a time … when to be a Romantic meant more than to be a dreamer or a love-sick youth;’ and travel, both in Britain, Europe and beyond, was central to the philosophy of the Romantic movement in art from the late eighteenth century onwards.

In the wake of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, sites which had been so familiar to the affluent and aristocratic Grand Tourists of the previous century, opened up to middle-class travellers. By the middle of the century more far-flung destinations, such as Egypt and the Middle East, hitherto largely the preserve of explorers, merchants and archaeologists, were attracting artists hungry for adventure, inspiration and enlightenment.

The rich contribution of Joanna Mary Boyce, George Price Boyce and Henry Tanworth Wells to the artistic history of the mid-nineteenth century came to light recently, and their descriptions of their travels, in particular, stand out for two main reasons: first, the 1840s and 1850s were relatively early for this kind of middle-class travel, and second, the three of them hardly ever travelled together. Instead, they recorded their experiences in detail, largely for the delectation of each other. Their letters, diaries and sketchbooks – all three were insatiable sketchers from an early age – paint (in some cases literally) vivid accounts of the places they visited and the art, architecture and landscapes they saw. Many artists have left records of their European adventures – among them Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), John Ruskin (1819–1900) and Anna Mary Howitt (1824–84), with all of whom the Boyce/Wells trio were familiar – but none, perhaps, have left quite such a lively picture of the actual business of travelling. Trains, public carriages, steamers and sledges over the Alps; the sleeping arrangements; the dangers to health; the political upheavals and even an earthquake – all were faced with admirable stoicism and equanimity.