A Field near Margate

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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.

Gallery label, September 2004

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