Cattle watering in a wooded landscape

Cooper returned to England in 1831 from Antwerp where he had been strongly influenced by the Dutch artist Eugène Verboeckhoven. After early success with the sale of small oil paintings, he was soon prompted to attempt more elaborate compositions on a larger scale. One of the first of these Cooper called 'Fording a Brook' which he described as "cattle going through the water to a road fringed with gnarled oaks, under an evening effect leading to the farmhouse in the distance," (My Life, 1890, Vol.1, p.219). This description could almost be applied to this work. However, many of his compositions in these early years featured cattle being herded along a tree-lined lane, often through a ford, by a rustic figure - usually a female as in the present work - mounted on a donkey. A few small paintings by Cooper from as early as 1827 are known, but it was not until 1832 that he decided to concentrate on oil painting. How successfully he adapted to the medium is amply demonstrated here.

A work slightly larger than the present example, also painted in 1832, became Cooper's first exhibited oil painting in London, at Suffolk Street in the following year (Landscape and Cattle; Leicester Museum and Art Gallery). These works very soon established his reputation for the highly finished paintings of cattle and sheep that he was to maintain for the rest of his life. The study for the bull in the centre foreground of the composition was also the model for the bull in the 'Bingley Gate' compositions of 1833 and 1834, (see lot 106) and also appears again in a watercolour of 1849.

We are very grateful for the help of Kenneth Westwood for his assistance in the preparation of this and the following catalogue entry.