Landscape with sheep and cattle on the bank of a stream

This pastoral landscape, with its incidental details of a bridge and some cattle, was probably done from imagination rather than life, as was typical of Thomas Gainsborough. Here, he laid out the composition with energetic strokes of black chalk and used a stump (a tool whose end blends the chalk marks) to render shadows as well as the softer tones of the distant church and hills. The attention to everyday detail is characteristic of Gainsborough’s landscapes, even though they represent idealised scenes.