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A Herdsman with Three Cows by an Upland Pool
Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-1788)mid-1780s
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States
Although he was one of the most celebrated society portraitists of his day, landscape painting was Thomas Gainsborough’s love and lifelong pleasure. Here, delicate layers of watercolor, ink, oil paint, and chalk result in a jewel-like work on paper. The composition combines the rural scene of a herdsman and three cows with an imagined, majestic mountain view, mingling the pastoral with the sublime. The sheet was among a group of 14 landscape drawings that Gainsborough selected as a gift for a close friend.
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Details
- Title: A Herdsman with Three Cows by an Upland Pool
- Creator: Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-1788)
- Date Created: mid-1780s
- Physical Dimensions: Sheet: 21.9 x 31.3 cm (8 5/8 x 12 5/16 in.)
- Provenance: Goodenough Earle, Barton Grange, Somerset, England, Francis Miller Newton, by descent to Josepha Sophia Newton, Josepha Sophia Newton, Francis Wheat Newton, (Agnew's, London), (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, NY), George D. Widener [1889-1971], Philadelphia, Private collection, by descent to private collection, United States, Private collection, United States, David Lee, UK, by descent to private collection, Private collection, (Lowell Libson, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH), Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
- Type: Drawing
- Rights: CC0
- External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/2006.156
- Medium: watercolor, ink and oil paint heightened with white chalk ("Bristol lead white")
- Fun Fact: Following the instruction of the influential painter and writer Jonathan Richardson, Gainsborough often arranged his landscape compositions with the brightest passage—here, the white cow and billowing clouds—near the center.
- Department: Drawings
- Culture: England, 18th century
- Credit Line: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Collection: DR - British
- Accession Number: 2006.156
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