Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Wooded landscape with cottage on a bank

VAT reduced rate

Auction Closed

July 5, 10:16 AM GMT

Estimate

7,000 - 10,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.

Sudbury 1727-1788 London

Wooded landscape with cottage on a bank

Pencil and stump on watermarked laid paper

156 by 193 mm

Probably the artist's executor's sale, London, Christie's, 11 May 1799, lot 82, 84 or 88;
probably, George Hibbert (1757-1837),
by descent to the Hon. Arthur Henry Holland-Hibbert, later 3^rd Viscount Knutsford (1855-1935),
his sale, London, Christie's, 30 June 1913, unknown lot number;
E. Horsman Coles,
by whom given to Paul Oppé (1878-1957), 1954;
Geoffrey Cumberlege (1891-1979),
with Anthony Reed, London, by 1983,
from whom acquired by the present owner

J. Hayes, 'Gainsborough Drawings: A Supplement to the Catalogue Raisonné', Master Drawings, vol. 21, no. 4, Winter 1983, pp. 367-391, no. 902

This drawing has been dated by John Hayes to the later 1750s, a period when Gainsborough was living in Suffolk and, after nearly a decade in London (1740-1749), he was enjoying immersing himself in the rural surroundings of his native county. By the 1750s he was already an established artist, having painted masterpieces such as Portrait of Mr and Mrs Andrews (1750)¹ and worked for important patrons such as the Duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey. In 1759 he and his young family would move to fashionable Bath, which he would take by storm.

1. London, National Gallery, inv. NG6301