.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
Bowing trees, large rocks and broken branches frame the slow procession of horse-drawn carts and workers, trailed by a loyal hound, slowly navigating a winding path through a hilly landscape. Thomas Gainsborough’s Wooded Landscape with Two Country Carts and Figures is a fine and intimate example of the artist’s passion for depicting his own ideal landscapes. The composition of this soft-ground etching draws close resemblances to the bucolic scenes depicted in other works by Gainsborough, in particular The Harvest Wagon, of which he painted two versions, the earlier in 1767 (now at the Barber Art Institute, Birmingham), the other around 1784 (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto). The print is also closely related to a grey wash drawing titled Wooded Landscape with Country Cart (Hayes 462), in the collection of Earl Spencer (see: J. Hayes, Gainsborough as Printmaker, London, 1971, p. 63-64).
Having grown up surrounded by the verdant countryside of Suffolk, Gainsborough had a deep fondness for the landscape genre, and he engaged with it throughout his career. Rustic vistas play an important role is his oeuvre, not just as landscapes in their own right but as the backdrop to even his grandest society portraits.
Although Gainsborough was not a prolific printmaker, the relatively few forays into this field reveal his very original approach to printmaking. Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that the artist played an integral role in the development of both the soft-ground etching and aquatint techniques in England. His understanding of the particular effects of soft-ground etching can be observed throughout this pastoral scene, from the velvety lines describing the foliage to the more tonal effects of light and shade, at once reminiscent of a charcoal drawing and - especially in the handling of the light - of landscape paintings of the Dutch Golden Age.
Through his employment of the soft-ground technique and the fluidity of his mark-making, Gainsborough succeeded in animating the natural landscape with a great economy of means, an indication of the confidence and ease with which he transferred his skill as a draughtsman into the print medium.
The present sheet is one of only a few impressions of the first state of Wooded Landscape with Two Country Carts and Figures, pulled by the artist himself, before the posthumous edition published by Boydell in 1797 (with the addition of the number 3 in the top left corner). Hayes recorded only three first-state impressions, all printed in grey ink: one with the text border below (Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino, California), and two similarly trimmed as the Schwartz impression (Paul Mellon Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; and British Museum, London). To this census we can add another impression with the text border (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and one without the number or text, which might be a trial proof (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco). To our knowledge, no other impression of the first state has been offered at auction within the last thirty years.
Having grown up surrounded by the verdant countryside of Suffolk, Gainsborough had a deep fondness for the landscape genre, and he engaged with it throughout his career. Rustic vistas play an important role is his oeuvre, not just as landscapes in their own right but as the backdrop to even his grandest society portraits.
Although Gainsborough was not a prolific printmaker, the relatively few forays into this field reveal his very original approach to printmaking. Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that the artist played an integral role in the development of both the soft-ground etching and aquatint techniques in England. His understanding of the particular effects of soft-ground etching can be observed throughout this pastoral scene, from the velvety lines describing the foliage to the more tonal effects of light and shade, at once reminiscent of a charcoal drawing and - especially in the handling of the light - of landscape paintings of the Dutch Golden Age.
Through his employment of the soft-ground technique and the fluidity of his mark-making, Gainsborough succeeded in animating the natural landscape with a great economy of means, an indication of the confidence and ease with which he transferred his skill as a draughtsman into the print medium.
The present sheet is one of only a few impressions of the first state of Wooded Landscape with Two Country Carts and Figures, pulled by the artist himself, before the posthumous edition published by Boydell in 1797 (with the addition of the number 3 in the top left corner). Hayes recorded only three first-state impressions, all printed in grey ink: one with the text border below (Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino, California), and two similarly trimmed as the Schwartz impression (Paul Mellon Center, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; and British Museum, London). To this census we can add another impression with the text border (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and one without the number or text, which might be a trial proof (Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco). To our knowledge, no other impression of the first state has been offered at auction within the last thirty years.