NARRATOR: Stubbs made this painting as part of a pair of works portraying idyllic rural scenes. 'The Reapers' and 'The Haymakers' were bought for the nation after a passionate public campaign in 1977, mainly through small public donations. Tate curator Martin Myrone talks about what these paintings meant to people at the time: MARTIN MYRONE; Remember 1977 is a period of turmoil and change in British society, we’re on the eve of the Thatcher era and there was industrial unrest and it was the year of the Sex Pistols and Punk and all those other things that we might associate with 1977. And yet these pictures represent a very orderly, very calm, very crisp and very beautifully crafted vision of the English countryside. I think the success of the campaign, to a degree, and certainly the level of public interest in these paintings, all of that reflects, or may reflect, some deep seated desire to see an idealised vision of what Britain might be, in these paintings.
