Yale Center for British Art

Creator:: Thomas Gainsborough, 1727–1788, British
Title:: Wooded Landscape with a Cottage and Shepherd
Date:: 1748 to 1750
Materials & Techniques:: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:: 17 x 21 3/8 inches (43.2 x 54.3 cm)
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1976.2.1
Gallery Label:: In 1748, Thomas Gainsborough returned from London to Sudbury, the small town in Suffolk where he was born. He aspired to be a landscape specialist, having studied the work of George Lambert as well as the seventeenth- century Dutch landscapes he encountered in London collections and with picture dealers. This small landscape of a resting shepherd boy, painted while Gainsborough was living in Sudbury, evokes that Dutch tradition. It is probably an imaginary view rather than a description of an actual place.\n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016