Woodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a Cart

Woodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a Cart

Thomas Gainsborough

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This boldly drawn colored drawing belongs to a series executed in the 1760s, when Gainsborough lived in the spa town of Bath (1759–74). Drawings from that period use contrasts of light and shadow to make forms fresh and legible, and are among the artist's most highly finished. This sheet belongs to a group that the artist gave to Goodenough Earle, owner of Barton Grange, near Taunton, Somerset. Descending in the family, the drawings were sold in 1914 by Knoedler & Co., New York, mostly to American collectors.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Woodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a CartWoodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a CartWoodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a CartWoodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a CartWoodland Scene with a Peasant, a Horse, and a Cart

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.