Thomas Gainsborough

Boy Driving Cows near a Pool

c.1786

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

Artist: Thomas Gainsborough 1727–1788
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 584 × 762 mm
frame: 815 × 994 × 115 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Robert Vernon 1847
Reference: N00309

Display caption

Gainsborough received very few commissions for landscape paintings; all those he exhibited were speculative works. The quiet solitude of this painting, with a drover leading a herd of cattle to water, is typical of Gainsborough's later landscapes. His own association of landscape painting with pastoral ease and tranquillity seemed to increase in his final years; he claimed: 'I'm sick of portraits and wish very much to take my Viol da Gamba [cello] and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint landskips and enjoy the fag end of life in quietness and ease'.

Gallery label, September 2004

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