Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

was the first British artist to make a major study of the subject of

gypsies The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

, beginning with two paintings in the 1750s, the first of which he never finished, and the second of which is now lost, but survives in an

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

by Gainsborough.

Provenance

His ''Landscape with Gipsies'', according to an anecdote told by

Joshua Kirby Joshua Kirby (1716, Parham, Suffolk – 1774, Kew), often mistakenly called John Joshua Kirby, was an English 18th-century landscape painter, engraver, writer, draughtsman and architect famed for his publications and teaching on linear perspect ...

's grandson Trimmer to

Walter Thornbury George Walter Thornbury (13 November 1828 – 11 June 1876) was an English author. He was the first biographer of J. M. W. Turner. Early life George Thornbury was born on 13 November 1828, the son of a London solicitor, reared by his aunt and e ...

in the 19th century, was originally commissioned from Gainsborough by a gentleman from "near

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

". The patron visited Gainsborough two-thirds of the way through his making the painting, and expressed his dislike of it; in response to which Gainsborough angrily told him that "You shall not have it" and proceeded to slash the canvas with a

penknife Penknife, or pen knife, is a British English term for a small folding knife. Today the word ''penknife'' is the common British English term for both a pocketknife, which can have single or multiple blades, and for multi-tools, with additional too ...

. Kirby begged Gainsborough for the painting, which was then repaired by Trimmer's father, and it is now in the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

collection, number N05845. There are detectable repaired slashes in the canvas, lending credence to Trimmer's anecdote. Trimmer further related that Gainsborough went on to paint a replacement painting for the patron, ''Wooded landscape with gipsies round a camp fire'' also named ''The Gipsies''. Trimmer was not able to track it down himself. Its ownership has been traced as far as

Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield Thomas William Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield PC (20 October 1795 – 18 March 1854), previously known as The Viscount Anson from 1818 to 1831, was a British Whig politician from the Anson family. He served under Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne as ...

but its whereabouts thereafter is unknown. Although the

oil on canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

is a lost work it survives as prints from an etching and is one of the most famous Gainsborough etchings. The etching was originally made by Gainsborough himself sometime around 1758, with further work done on it by professional engraver Joseph (a.k.a. John) Wood and publication in 1759. Several prints of it are in the collection of the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and in other museums. Gainsborough made several trial proofs of the etching, which have enabled art historians to analyze its development as he was working on it.

Themes

''Landscape with Gipsies'' is similarly structured to Gainsborough's "Cottage Door" series of paintings, and is a similar family group portrait. Although lacking the series' eponymous cottage, the landscape in the background effectively serves as the gypsy family's house and garden. In the painting, a male gathers faggots, fuel for a fire beneath a cooking pot, whilst another male searches in

panniers A pannier is a basket, bag, box, or similar container, carried in pairs either slung over the back of a beast of burden, or attached to the sides of a bicycle or motorcycle. The term derives from a Middle English borrowing of the Old French '' ...

attached to a

donkey The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a ...

and some children sit. The painting is centred on the donkey, and for that reason as well as the arrangement of light reflected off the woman astride the donkey and one of the children by the fire, also bears some similarity to traditional scenes of the

Nativity of Jesus The nativity of Jesus, nativity of Christ, birth of Jesus or birth of Christ is described in the biblical gospels of Gospel of Luke, Luke and Gospel of Matthew, Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judaea (Roman ...

. ''The Gipsies'' depicts a group of gypsies gathered around a fire under a tree with a prominent dead branch hanging above them. ''Landscape with Gipsies'' contrasts with Gainsborough's approximately two decades later painting ''Gypsy Encampment, Sunset''. There, the family and animals are moved to the edges of the painting, and are in shadow, with the centre of the painting being an empty stretch of grassland. There is no reflected light from the fire or otherwise on the figures, whose faces and indeed number are indistinct. On the right, a man tends to two horses, whilst in the grouping on the left a man gropes the breast of a woman and a figure stands bent over a cauldron. A church spire in the background, something akin to which is also present but almost invisibly small in ''Landscape with Gipsies'', is far more prominent.

Related works

Thomas Gainsborough - Country Lane with Gypsies Resting - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Country Lane with Gypsies Resting'' (watercolour, early 1760s) Thomas Gainsborough - Wooded Landscape with Gypsy Encampment - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Wooded Landscape with Gypsy Encampment'' (chalk on paper, late 1770s)

References

Cross-reference

Sources

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External links

This is a selected sample of other collections, and is meant to be representative rather than exhaustive. Listings here have little to no annotations. * * * {{Thomas Gainsborough Landscape paintings by Thomas Gainsborough Lost paintings 1753 paintings Cultural depictions of Romani people Fake or Fortune?