Thomas Gainsborough was the first British artist to make a major study of the subject of Romani people, [1] [2] beginning with two paintings in the 1750s, the first of which he never finished, and the second of which is now lost, but survives in an etching by Gainsborough.
His Landscape with Gipsies, according to an anecdote told by Joshua Kirby's grandson Trimmer to Walter Thornbury in the 19th century, was originally commissioned from Gainsborough by a gentleman from "near Ipswich". [3] [4] The patron visited Gainsborough two-thirds of the way through his making the painting, and expressed his dislike of it; in response to which Gainsborough angrily told him that "You shall not have it" and proceeded to slash the canvas with a penknife. [3] [4] Kirby begged Gainsborough for the painting, [5] which was then repaired by Trimmer's father, [6] and it is now in the Tate collection, number N05845. There are detectable repaired slashes in the canvas, lending credence to Trimmer's anecdote. [7]
Trimmer further related that Gainsborough went on to paint a replacement painting for the patron, [8] Wooded landscape with gipsies round a camp fire also named The Gipsies. Trimmer was not able to track it down himself. [8] Its ownership has been traced as far as Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield but its whereabouts thereafter is unknown. [7]
Although the oil on canvas is a lost work it survives as an etching, one of the best known of the few Gainsborough etchings. [7] The etching was originally made by Gainsborough himself sometime around 1758, with further work done on it by the professional engraver Joseph (a.k.a. John) Wood and publication in 1759. [9] [10] [11] Several copies of the print are in the collection of the British Museum and other collections. Gainsborough made several trial proofs of the etching, which have enabled art historians to analyze its development as he was working on it. [9] [12] [13] It is notable for being the first commercially published print of Gainsborough's work. [14]
The painting and a forged painting of it was the main subject on Fake or Fortune? series 8 episode 1 in 2019. [15] [16]
Landscape with Gipsies is similarly structured to Gainsborough's "Cottage Door" series of paintings, and is a similar family group portrait. [17] Although lacking the series' eponymous cottage, the landscape in the background effectively serves as the gypsy family's house and garden. [18] In the painting, a male gathers faggots, fuel for a fire beneath a cooking pot, whilst another male searches in panniers attached to a donkey and some children sit. [18] The painting is centred on the donkey, and for that reason as well as the arrangement of light reflected off the woman astride the donkey and one of the children by the fire, also bears some similarity to traditional scenes of the Nativity of Jesus. [18]
The Gipsies depicts a group of gypsies gathered around a fire under a tree with a prominent dead branch hanging above them. [10]
Landscape with Gipsies contrasts with Gainsborough's approximately two decades later painting Gypsy Encampment, Sunset. [19] There, the family and animals are moved to the edges of the painting, and are in shadow, with the centre of the painting being an empty stretch of grassland. [19] There is no reflected light from the fire or otherwise on the figures, whose faces and indeed number are indistinct. [20] On the right, a man tends to two horses, whilst in the grouping on the left a man gropes the breast of a woman and a figure stands bent over a cauldron. [20] A church spire in the background, something akin to which is also present but almost invisibly small in Landscape with Gipsies, is far more prominent. [20]
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes. He is credited as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. He left behind more than 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours, and 30,000 works on paper. He was championed by the leading English art critic John Ruskin from 1840, and is today regarded as having elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting.
John Crome, once known as Old Crome to distinguish him from his artist son John Berney Crome, was an English landscape painter of the Romantic era, one of the principal artists and founding members of the Norwich School of painters. He lived in the English city of Norwich for all his life. Most of his works are of Norfolk landscapes.
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
Samuel Palmer Hon.RE was a British landscape painter, etcher and printmaker. He was also a prolific writer. Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.
Paul Sandby was an English map-maker turned landscape painter in watercolours, who, along with his older brother Thomas, became one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768.
Frank Weston Benson, frequently referred to as Frank W. Benson, was an American artist from Salem, Massachusetts, known for his Realistic portraits, American Impressionist paintings, watercolors and etchings. He began his career painting portraits of distinguished families and murals for the Library of Congress. Some of his best known paintings depict his daughters outdoors at Benson's summer home, Wooster Farm, on the island of North Haven, Maine. He also produced numerous oil, wash and watercolor paintings and etchings of wildfowl and landscapes.
John Trevor Hayes was a British art historian and museum director. He was an authority on the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough.
Philip Jonathan Clifford Mould is an English art dealer, London gallery owner, art historian, writer and broadcaster. He has made a number of major art discoveries, including works of Thomas Gainsborough, Anthony Van Dyck and Thomas Lawrence.
John Laporte was an English landscape painter and etcher, who worked in and around London, England.
Thomas Barker or Barker of Bath, was a British painter of landscape and rural life.
Gainsborough's House is the birthplace of the leading English painter Thomas Gainsborough. It is now a museum and gallery, located at 46 Gainsborough Street in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. It is a Grade I listed building. Some of the pictures on display have been acquired with the help of the Art Fund.
Michael J. Rosenthal is emeritus professor of the history of art at the University of Warwick. He is a specialist both in British art and culture of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the arts of early colonial Australia.
Wooded Landscape with a Herdsman Seated is an oil painting by Thomas Gainsborough, from 1748. It is in the collection of Gainsborough's House.
Hugh Graham Belsey, MBE, is a British art historian who is an authority on the art of Thomas Gainsborough. For 23 years he was the curator of Gainsborough's House in Sudbury. His most recent contribution to Gainsborough scholarship is his catalogue raisonné of Gainsborough's portraits published in February 2019 by the Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Joseph Gape (1720–1801) was an English barrister and three-times mayor of St Albans in Hertfordshire in 1746, 1761 and 1797. He also served on the city council for more than 50 years.
Martin Henry Colnaghi was a British art dealer for the London-based Colnaghi.
Thomas Gainsborough was the first British artist to employ cottages as a major subject, in what has become known as his "Cottage Door" paintings, painted during the final decades of his life; and was in the vanguard of a late 18th century fad of interest in them.
Henry Vaughan was a British art collector. He is best known for his many generous gifts and bequests to British and Irish public collections.
Robert Price (1717–1761) was an English gentleman, known as an artist for his drawings, and as a musical amateur. He contributed to the garden design at the family property of Foxley, Herefordshire, was an art patron, and was the father of Uvedale Price, theorist of the picturesque.
Collections listed here have significant annotations against their catalogue entries.
This is a selected sample of other collections, and is meant to be representative rather than exhaustive. Listings here have little to no annotations.