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 prints from an etching and is one of the most famous Gainsborough etchings. [7] The etching was originally made by Gainsborough himself sometime around 1758, with further work done on it by professional engraver Joseph (a.k.a. John) Wood and publication in 1759. [9] [10] [11] Several prints of it are in the collection of the British Museum and in other museums. Gainsborough made several trial proofs of the etching, which have enabled art historians to analyze its development as he was working on it. [9]
Landscape with Gipsies is similarly structured to Gainsborough's "Cottage Door" series of paintings, and is a similar family group portrait. [12] Although lacking the series' eponymous cottage, the landscape in the background effectively serves as the gypsy family's house and garden. [13] 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. [13] 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. [13]
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. [14] 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. [14] There is no reflected light from the fire or otherwise on the figures, whose faces and indeed number are indistinct. [15] 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. [15] 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. [15]
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.
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded at his family home in London, at 83 Gower Street. Millais became the most famous exponent of the style, his painting Christ in the House of His Parents (1849–50) generating considerable controversy, and he produced a picture that could serve as the embodiment of the historical and naturalist focus of the group, Ophelia, in 1851–52.
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".
George Stubbs was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Reynolds and Gainsborough. Stubbs' output includes history paintings, but his greatest skill was in painting animals, perhaps influenced by his love and study of anatomy. His series of paintings on the theme of a lion attacking a horse are early and significant examples of the Romantic movement that emerged in the late 18th century. He enjoyed royal patronage. His painting Whistlejacket hangs in the National Gallery, London.
The Norwich School of painters was the first provincial art movement established in Britain, active in the early 19th century. Artists of the school were inspired by the natural environment of the Norfolk landscape and owed some influence to the work of landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age such as Hobbema and Ruisdael.
Cecil Gordon Lawson was a British landscapist and illustrator.
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.
Samuel Colman was an American painter, interior designer, and writer, probably best remembered for his paintings of the Hudson River.
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.
John Trevor Hayes was a British art historian and museum director. He was an authority on the paintings of Thomas Gainsborough.
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.
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.
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.
Maria, Lady Eardley is an oil on canvas by the English artist, Thomas Gainsborough, painted around the time of her marriage in 1766, according to British art historian, Ellis Waterhouse, in “Preliminary Check List of Portraits by Thomas Gainsborough,” The Volume of the Walpole Society 33 : 34. It has been in the collections of Nationalmuseum in Stockholm since 1966.
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.