Although called ‘View from the Mendips’ it has been suggested that this view is actually from near Cleeve Hill. Christ Church, Clevedon, is seen in the distance, and was a new church consecrated in 1839. A working lime kiln is shown in the centre. The painting is unusual in that it is signed by two artists, although it has not yet been possible to prove why. Henry Hewitt was a minor Bristol artist who may have been a pupil of Pyne’s before the latter left Bristol in the mid-1830s. It is known that Pyne would work with a pupil on the same picture and also that he often returned to paintings at a later date and altered them. Hewitt’s signature of 1846 (bottom left) was later painted over and not revealed again until the painting was conserved for display in the 1990s. Pyne was the better artist and the panoramic background is certainly his work, but much of the foreground is probably Hewitt’s. Pyne’s later work was of Continental scenes and the Lake District and was much influenced by Turner but he also continued to paint views of the Bristol area.