Private collection, USA
A mountainous landscape with a herdsman and his cattle
- Black and white chalks and stump on white wove paper
- 11 × 14 ½ inches · 280 × 368 mm
- Inscribed verso in the hand of William Esdaile: ‘1817 WE. Lamberts coll P45 N54/Gainsborough’
Drawn in the mid to late 1770s
Engraved: Thomas Rowlandson, in aquatint for Imitations of Modern Drawings, c.1784-8, where the image is seen in reverse.
Collections
- Charles Lambert (L.589) by 1817;
- William Esdaile (L.2617);
- Christie’s, London, 16 March 1838, lot 822 (£1/2/- to Cavendish);
- William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, and by descent at Holker Hall, to 1994;
- Cavendish sale, Christie’s, London, 8 November 1994, lot 10;
- With Leger Galleries, London, 1995;
- Private collection acquired from the above;
- With Lowell Libson Ltd, 2003;
- Private collection, USA, acquired from the above, to 2017
Exhibitions
- London, Tate Gallery, Thomas Gainsborough, 1980-81, no. 37, repr.;
- Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum;
- New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, Gainsborough Drawings, 1983, no. 71 repr.;
- London, Leger Galleries, British Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings, 1995;
- New York, Lowell Libson Ltd, Themes and Variations: The Art of Landscape, May 2003, no. 4.
Literature
- John Hayes, ‘Notes on British Art: The Holker Gainsboroughs’, Apollo, LXXX, June 1964, Supplement, pp.2-3, repr. fig. 3;
- John Hayes, The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough, London, 1970, pp. 34 & 255, cat. no. 636, repr. pl. 194;
- Leger Galleries, British Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings, 1995, pp. 30–4;
- Lowell Libson, Hugh Belsey & Peter Bower, Themes and Variations: Thomas Gainsborough, The Art of Landscape, 2003, pp. 11, 12, 21, 38-9, illustrated, p. 39, cat. no. 4;
- Lowell Libson, The First Five Years, London, 2007, p. 26–7;
- Hugh Belsey, 'A Second Supplement to John Hayes' 'The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough', Master Drawings, XLVI (4), Winter 2008, pp. 431-32, illustrated, fig. 5.