Wooded Landscape with Herdsmen and Cows

Publisher Republished by John & Josiah Boydell British
August 1, 1797
Not on view
Most famous for his dashing portraits of eighteenth-century society figures, Gainsborough was also a highly skilled printmaker who in his late career experimented with the "sugar-lift" aquatint medium—named after a sugar and ink solution used to draw on the plate that later dissolves when immersed in water. The subject of grazing cows in a sun-struck sylvan setting recalls seventeenth-century Dutch pastorals.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Wooded Landscape with Herdsmen and Cows
  • Artist: Thomas Gainsborough (British, Sudbury 1727–1788 London)
  • Publisher: Republished by John & Josiah Boydell (British, 1786–1804)
  • Date: August 1, 1797
  • Medium: Aquatint (sugar-lift process), printed in brown ink
  • Dimensions: plate: 10 7/8 x 13 11/16 in. (27.6 x 34.7 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949
  • Object Number: 49.95.59
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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