.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
A man with a staff over his shoulder and a child are walking across a humped-backed bridge over a weir. A woman riding sidesaddle and a dog follow behind. The tired figures move slowly towards a steep bank with a small flock of sheep tended by a shepherd and higher up on the right is a cottage that closes the composition. The foreground is separated from the mountainous background by a dense wood and in the center, beyond the screen of trees, is a white building—perhaps a church—that links the receding planes of the sheet. To the left a spindly tree frames the scene and introduces the beholder into the composition. The subject is drawn on brown paper which provides the mid-tones for the design that is worked in black and white chalks. In the foreground the white is used as a highlight and in the background it serves to form the mountains and the cloudscape.
This fluent and confident drawing, which has not been seen for a century, first appeared in the collection of Henry Pfungst, a London vintner, who built up a remarkable group of drawings. At the time of his death, he was preparing a catalogue of the artist’s drawings which was never published although his manuscript notes and photographs are split between the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut (Folio A N 96) and Gainsborough’s House. The elongated tree on the left reappears in the drawing now in Rotterdam (Boymans-van Beuningen Museum: E10; Hayes op. cit. 1970, no. 708) and a similar tree appears in another sheet in Tate (2223; Hayes, op. cit. 1970, no. 776). The boulders on the right with the arrangement of the woods and distant mountains is very like the drawing, now at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury (2001.152; Hayes, op. cit. 1970, no. 590), which is a study for the painting in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich (J. Hayes, The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, London 1982, pp. 142, 145,169–71,175, 181, 182, 514–16, catalogue no. 146). John Hayes noted similarities between the drawing under discussion and the late landscape painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (1937.1.107; Hayes, op. cit., 1982, pp. 145, 147, 171, 231, 523–24, cat. no. 151) which he dates to 1783–84. Although the panoramic painting in Washington is taken from a higher viewpoint, it uses the same elements in a very similar arrangement and so the drawing should be considered a compositional study for this well-known canvas.
We are grateful to Hugh Belsey for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
This fluent and confident drawing, which has not been seen for a century, first appeared in the collection of Henry Pfungst, a London vintner, who built up a remarkable group of drawings. At the time of his death, he was preparing a catalogue of the artist’s drawings which was never published although his manuscript notes and photographs are split between the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut (Folio A N 96) and Gainsborough’s House. The elongated tree on the left reappears in the drawing now in Rotterdam (Boymans-van Beuningen Museum: E10; Hayes op. cit. 1970, no. 708) and a similar tree appears in another sheet in Tate (2223; Hayes, op. cit. 1970, no. 776). The boulders on the right with the arrangement of the woods and distant mountains is very like the drawing, now at Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury (2001.152; Hayes, op. cit. 1970, no. 590), which is a study for the painting in the Neue Pinakothek in Munich (J. Hayes, The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, London 1982, pp. 142, 145,169–71,175, 181, 182, 514–16, catalogue no. 146). John Hayes noted similarities between the drawing under discussion and the late landscape painting in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (1937.1.107; Hayes, op. cit., 1982, pp. 145, 147, 171, 231, 523–24, cat. no. 151) which he dates to 1783–84. Although the panoramic painting in Washington is taken from a higher viewpoint, it uses the same elements in a very similar arrangement and so the drawing should be considered a compositional study for this well-known canvas.
We are grateful to Hugh Belsey for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.