'A Field near Margate', George Richmond

Artwork details

Artist

George Richmond (1809‑1896)

Title

A Field near Margate

Date 1850

MediumWatercolour and gouache on paper

Dimensionssupport: 180 x 264 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Purchased as part of the Oppé Collection with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund 1996

Reference

T08272

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Display caption

Although a highly successful portrait painter, Richmond drew and painted landscapes throughout his career. Often, though not always, such landscapes looked back to the intensely spiritual view of landscape which Richmond shared in common with Samuel Palmer when he was one of the Ancients. This work can be associated with Richmond's holiday near Margate, Kent in the late summer of 1850 when the artist's infant daughter died from whooping cough. The watercolour has faded but the bare earth, the wind-bent trees and the corn-stacks in the foreground showing that the harvest has been gathered, create a sombre mood which might be attributable to this event.

September 2004