Cattle at a Fountain
Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1786 - 1814 (exh at BI)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
622 x 749 mm (24 1/2 x 29 1/2 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486140
Caption
This bucolic scene was bought by Sir John Leicester, later Lord de Tabley, in 1814 for 250 guineas. Over ten years later it was bought by Thomas Phillips at Christie’s, for 300 guineas, for the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837).The 3rd Earl was a remarkable patron of British art, perhaps best known for his friendship with Turner.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Cattle at a Fountain by Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788), circa 1786. A red cow drinking, a white one waiting; a girl in white seated, talking to a herdsman with some goats. A silver birch, right, bends over the fountain. Distant hills in centre, trees topping a slope, left. Golden sunlight in right foreground.
Provenance
Bought by Sir John Fleming Leicester, 5th Bt & 1st Baron de Tabley (1762-1827) in 1814; bought by Thomas Phillips (1770 – 1845) at his posthumous Christie's sale on 7 July 1827 for 300 gns for the 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837); thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HMTreasury; formal transfer of ownership on 20 September 1990 by HMTreasury to the National Trust.
Credit line
Petworth, The Egremont Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Thomas Gainsborough RA (Sudbury 1727 - London 1788), artist
References
Waagen 1857 Gustav Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London, 1857, p. 39 Thornbury, 1877: Walter Thornbury, The Life of J.M.W.Turner, R.A.; founded on letters and papers furnished by his friends and fellow Academicians, London, 1st edition 1862, 2 vols. Revised edition, London and New York, 1877, Vol.II p.6 Collins Baker 1920 C.H.Collins Baker, Catalogue of the Petworth Collection of Pictures, in the possession of Lord Leconfield, privately printed by the Medici Society, London, 1920, 28 Waterhouse 1958 Ellis K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London 1958, p.121, no.999 Hayes 1982 John Hayes, The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, A Critical Text and Catalogue Raisonné, London, Sotheby’s, 1982, vol.II, No.178 Hayes 1988 John Hayes, Gainsborough and Rowlandson: A New York Private Collection, New York, 1998, pp.50-51, fig.9