The Skylark

1850

Not on view

Samuel Palmer, one of the greatest British etchers, engaged throughout his career with the poetry of John Milton. This pastoral idyll - in which a man accompanied by a dog, pauses at a gate to watch a bird soar into the early-morning sky - relates to a passage in Milton's L'Allegro of 1645 (lines 40-44): "To hear the lark begin his flight/ And singing startle the dull night,/ From his watch-towre in the skies/ Till the dappled dawn doth rise."

Artwork Details

Title: The Skylark
Artist: Samuel Palmer (British, London 1805–1881 Redhill, Surrey)
Date: 1850
Medium: Etching on chine collé; seventh or eighth state of eight
Dimensions: sheet: 14 7/16 x 10 5/8 in. (36.7 x 27 cm)
plate: 4 3/4 x 3 13/16 in. (12 x 9.7 cm)
image: 3 7/8 x 2 15/16 in. (9.9 x 7.4 cm)
Classification: Prints
Credit Line: A. Hyatt Mayor Purchase Fund, Marjorie Phelps Starr Bequest, 2003
Object Number: 2003.327
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By Samuel Palmer

In the same medium

From the same time and place

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Opening the Fold, or Early Morning, Samuel Palmer British, Etching; third state of ten, retouched in graphite — Opening the Fold, or Early Morning
Samuel Palmer
1880

Opening the Fold, or Early Morning, Samuel Palmer British, Etching; third state of ten — Opening the Fold, or Early Morning
Samuel Palmer
1880

The Rising Moon, Samuel Palmer British, Etching; sixth or between sixth and seventh state of nine — The Rising Moon
Samuel Palmer
ca. 1855

Christmas, or Folding the Last Sheep, Samuel Palmer British, Etching; second state of five — Christmas, or Folding the Last Sheep
Samuel Palmer
1850

The Sleeping Shepherd; Early Morning, Samuel Palmer British, Etching on chine collé; third state of four — The Sleeping Shepherd; Early Morning
Samuel Palmer
1857

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