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Thomas Gainsborough

1727 - 1788

Three Cows on a Hillside by Thomas Gainsborough
 

Three Cows on a Hillside   c.1784-88

  Soft ground etching and aquatint by Thomas Rowlandson after Thomas Gainsborough.
With Gainsborough’s name in the plate.
Ref: Hayes pp.43 & 45; Belsey Gainsborough the Printmaker, item no.10.
S 192 x 233 mm; P 185 x 228 mm; I 155 x 210 mm
SOLD
 
Very good impression as first issued for Imitations of Modern Drawings, published c.1784-88 – this publication is exceptionally rare – when writing in 1988, Hugh Belsey (Curator of Gainsborough House) could only trace one sole complete copy in existence.

Gainsborough made his own aquatint version of this image (Hayes 3); however, Rowlandson’s soft ground etching with aquatint is much closer to Gainsborough’s original watercolour drawing which is now in the British Museum (G.g.3-390).

On coarse antique wove paper with thread margins. Some staining at extreme lower edge of sheet, otherwise generally very good original condition.