THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH R.A.
(1727-1788)
River Landscape
Provenance
Samuel Woodburn
Benjamin Gibbons
Arthur Tooth
Leger Galleries
Private Collection, USA
Literature
Ellis Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London, 1958, no. 837
John Hayes, The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough, London, 1982, no.57
The composition, with a prominent ruined building on the hillside and the distance closed by mountains, is unique in Gainsborough's early work, and is evidently inspired by such Berchems as those formerly in the Cook collection, where the gesture of the woman is also similar. Rural lovers, however, remain the subject of the picture.
John Hayes dated the present work to c.1754.