Sir George Clausen

Gleaners Coming Home

1904

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Not on display

Artist: Sir George Clausen 1852–1944
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 927 × 1226 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by C.N. Luxmoore 1929
Reference: N04486

Display caption

Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from fields after harvest. The right to glean fields was reserved for people experiencing poverty. It became a popular subject in Victorian art but was often romanticised. This picture of women and children burdened with heavy loads, is set in Essex. Their hardship is apparent in their stances and empty gazes. Contemporary critics, however, mostly focused on Clausen’s style: ‘they carry the sun with them as they walk: they are absorbed in heat and colour’ (Pall Mall Gazette). Clausen dedicated his art to painting scenes of rural life.

Gallery label, October 2020

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Catalogue entry

N04486 GLEANERS COMING HOME 1904

Inscr. ‘G. Clausen 1904’ b.l.
Canvas, 36 1/2×48 1/4 (93×122·5).
Presented by C. N. Luxmoore 1929.
Coll: Purchased by C. N. Luxmoore from the artist.
Exh: R.A., 1904 (258); Modern Paintings and Prints, Manchester, 1910 (117).
Repr: Royal Academy Pictures, 1904, p.95; National Gallery, Millbank [Tate Gallery], Review of the Acquisitions, 1927–29, 1930, p.32.

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Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, I