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Lot Essay
The present drawing is one of a small group of paintings and drawings exploring one of Gainsborough's most personal subjects and one which he considered extensively during the last two decades of his life, his 'cottage door' subjects.
The subject first appeared in the background of a painting of 1770, Landscape with travellers returning from market (Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London). However, Gainsborough began to develop the theme of a cottage in a wooded landscape as a subject in its own right. In 1773 Gainsborough sold an upright painting of a woodcutter with a bundle of sticks returning to his cottage, with his family outside, to the 4th Duke of Rutland (Belvoir Castle). He immediately made another version for his friend the violinist Felice de Giardini (Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo). A few years later in 1778, he exhibited at the Royal Academy another painting of the same subject, but this time in a landscape format; this painting is now in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Other paintings of the same subject were subsequently executed, including one exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780 (Huntingdon Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California).
Hugh Belsey in his exploration of Gainsborough's cottage door works, has noted that the present drawing is part of the development from the upright format of the earliest two paintings to the landscape format of the Cincinnati painting (H. Belsey, op. cit., p. 84). As such it plays a crucial role in understanding the artist's development of his ideas for this subject.
There has been much debate as to the motivation for exploring such a subject and whether the works have a political or social content, or whether they were more personal representations of the artist's feelings. It has been suggested that they were intended as comments on the plight of the rural poor, following the changing social conditions during the 18th Century, and indeed many of the male figures in Gainsborough's paintings and drawings appear bowed down by their loads.
However, the female figures and the children arranged around the cottage doors are attractive, well fed and appear to be enjoying life. Could they therefore instead be intended, at least in part, as more positive comments on the benefits of rural life on health and well-being of the population?
As Susan Sloman has pointed out, at the time there was a great awareness of the benefits of country living. The Foundling Hospital (amongst others) operated a scheme whereby all its children were raised in the country with foster families until the age of four or five, when they returned to the Hospital to be educated for a trade (S. Sloman '"Innocence and health": Nursing Women in Gainbsorough's Cottage-door Paintings', Sensation and Sensibility, Viewing Gainsborough's Cottage Door, 2005, p.45).
Gainsborough himself, like many of his contemporaries, had an idyllic view of the countryside. Writing to his friend William Jackson, whilst still living in Bath he exclaimed, 'I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my Viol de Gam and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint Landskips and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease'. (J. Hayes, ed., The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, Yale, 2001, p. 68). When Gainsborough exhibited The Cottage Door (Huntingdon) at the Royal Academy in 1780, one critic encapsulated contemporary responses: 'this beautiful scene where serenity and pleasure dwell in every spot, and the lovely figures [are] composed in the finest rural style, their situation worthy of them, forms a scene of happiness that may truly be called Adam's paradise.' (J. Hayes, The Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, London, 1982, II, p. 480).
Gainsborough's landscapes were always deeply personal to the artist; his drawings even more so, almost always created for his own interest and amusement. However, by this time, with his reputation as a portrait painter well established, Gainsborough must have felt more able to explore subjects that engaged him. It has been suggested that these cottage door subjects may have been intended as a metaphor of his own life and the pressure that Gainsborough felt in having to provide not only for his wife and daughters but for his siblings and wider family. Is the figure of the wood-gatherer emblematic of the weight that Gainsborough felt he bore? There is certainly a discrepancy between the carefree depiction of the female figures and the children and the more careworn, burdened male figure. Each work is different in content, tone and technique and perhaps this in part reflects the mood of the artist. Furthermore in only one work, executed a year or two before his death, is the male figure sitting at ease, relaxing with his family, rather than laboring.
However these drawings were intended to be read, it remains that this group of drawings and paintings, like all of Gainsborough's landscapes were deeply personal explorations of a subject which engaged the artist on a range of levels and demonstrate an artist at the height of his powers.
The subject first appeared in the background of a painting of 1770, Landscape with travellers returning from market (Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London). However, Gainsborough began to develop the theme of a cottage in a wooded landscape as a subject in its own right. In 1773 Gainsborough sold an upright painting of a woodcutter with a bundle of sticks returning to his cottage, with his family outside, to the 4th Duke of Rutland (Belvoir Castle). He immediately made another version for his friend the violinist Felice de Giardini (Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo). A few years later in 1778, he exhibited at the Royal Academy another painting of the same subject, but this time in a landscape format; this painting is now in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Other paintings of the same subject were subsequently executed, including one exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780 (Huntingdon Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California).
Hugh Belsey in his exploration of Gainsborough's cottage door works, has noted that the present drawing is part of the development from the upright format of the earliest two paintings to the landscape format of the Cincinnati painting (H. Belsey, op. cit., p. 84). As such it plays a crucial role in understanding the artist's development of his ideas for this subject.
There has been much debate as to the motivation for exploring such a subject and whether the works have a political or social content, or whether they were more personal representations of the artist's feelings. It has been suggested that they were intended as comments on the plight of the rural poor, following the changing social conditions during the 18th Century, and indeed many of the male figures in Gainsborough's paintings and drawings appear bowed down by their loads.
However, the female figures and the children arranged around the cottage doors are attractive, well fed and appear to be enjoying life. Could they therefore instead be intended, at least in part, as more positive comments on the benefits of rural life on health and well-being of the population?
As Susan Sloman has pointed out, at the time there was a great awareness of the benefits of country living. The Foundling Hospital (amongst others) operated a scheme whereby all its children were raised in the country with foster families until the age of four or five, when they returned to the Hospital to be educated for a trade (S. Sloman '"Innocence and health": Nursing Women in Gainbsorough's Cottage-door Paintings', Sensation and Sensibility, Viewing Gainsborough's Cottage Door, 2005, p.45).
Gainsborough himself, like many of his contemporaries, had an idyllic view of the countryside. Writing to his friend William Jackson, whilst still living in Bath he exclaimed, 'I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my Viol de Gam and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint Landskips and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease'. (J. Hayes, ed., The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough, Yale, 2001, p. 68). When Gainsborough exhibited The Cottage Door (Huntingdon) at the Royal Academy in 1780, one critic encapsulated contemporary responses: 'this beautiful scene where serenity and pleasure dwell in every spot, and the lovely figures [are] composed in the finest rural style, their situation worthy of them, forms a scene of happiness that may truly be called Adam's paradise.' (J. Hayes, The Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, London, 1982, II, p. 480).
Gainsborough's landscapes were always deeply personal to the artist; his drawings even more so, almost always created for his own interest and amusement. However, by this time, with his reputation as a portrait painter well established, Gainsborough must have felt more able to explore subjects that engaged him. It has been suggested that these cottage door subjects may have been intended as a metaphor of his own life and the pressure that Gainsborough felt in having to provide not only for his wife and daughters but for his siblings and wider family. Is the figure of the wood-gatherer emblematic of the weight that Gainsborough felt he bore? There is certainly a discrepancy between the carefree depiction of the female figures and the children and the more careworn, burdened male figure. Each work is different in content, tone and technique and perhaps this in part reflects the mood of the artist. Furthermore in only one work, executed a year or two before his death, is the male figure sitting at ease, relaxing with his family, rather than laboring.
However these drawings were intended to be read, it remains that this group of drawings and paintings, like all of Gainsborough's landscapes were deeply personal explorations of a subject which engaged the artist on a range of levels and demonstrate an artist at the height of his powers.