The Early Ploughman, or The Morning Spread Upon the Mountains
| Reference: | S42309 |
| Author | Samuel PALMER |
| Year: | 1860 ca. |
| Measures: | 245 x 165 mm |
| Reference: | S42309 |
| Author | Samuel PALMER |
| Year: | 1860 ca. |
| Measures: | 245 x 165 mm |
Description
Etching, circa 1858/60, without printing details.
Ploughman drives his team of four oxen towards the fields as the sun rises.
A fine impression, printed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, perfect condition. Published in 1868 by Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834-1894) in Etching and Etchers. Pobably the sixth or seventh state of nine.
Samuel Palmer (London, January 25, 1805 - Redhill, May 24, 1881) was an English landscape painter, engraver and writer. Key figure of British Romanticism, Palmer was introduced in 1824 to William Blake. The meeting was decisive, because it allowed him to discover his own nature, prone to visionary. Retired to Shoreham, in Kent, from 1827 to 1832, gathered around him a group of young disciples, enthusiastic about Blake.
Bibliografia
Joseph Viscomi Prints by William Blake and His Followers. Ex. cat., March 15-April 17. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 1983, cat. no. 53, pp. 25, 34, ill.; Raymond Lister Catalogue Raisonne of the Works of Samuel Palmer. Cambridge, 1988, cat. no. E9 v/ix, pp. 244-5, ill.; Allen Staley The Post-Pre-Raphaelite Print: etching, illustration, reproductive engraving, and photography in England in and around the 1860s. Ex. cat., Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University. New York, 1995, cat. no. 72, pp. 124-5, ill.; Jerrold Northrop Moore Pastoral: An Exhibition of Printmaking in the English Pastoral Tradition from William Blake to Robin Tanner. Exh. cat.: 24 June to 18 July, 2002. The Fine Art Society, London, London, 2002, cat. no. 11, p. 29, ill.; Gordon Cooke Samuel Palmer, His Friends and His Followers: Edward Calvert, George Richmond, Frederick Griggs, Paul Drury, Graham Sutherland, Robin Tanner. Exh. cat. The Fine Art Society, London, May 30-June 22, 2012, cat. no. 12, p. 25; William Vaughan Samuel Palmer: Shadows on the Wall. New Haven and London, 2015, British Museum copy, fig. no. 264, p. 303.
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Samuel Palmer (London, January 25, 1805 - Redhill, May 24, 1881) was an English landscape painter, engraver and writer. Key figure of British Romanticism, Palmer was introduced in 1824 to William Blake. The meeting was decisive, because it allowed him to discover his own nature, prone to visionary. Retired to Shoreham, in Kent, from 1827 to 1832, gathered around him a group of young disciples, enthusiastic about Blake. To the period of Shoreham belongs the most significant production of Palmer: a series of watercolors and oil paintings, in which the theme of meditation on nature is lived with bucolic spirit and is invested with a strong spiritual charge. Samuel Palmer was born in London, in Old Kent Road, on January 27, 1805. He manifested his artistic vocation at the age of twelve, when he made paintings of a religious nature; at the age of fourteen he exhibited his works, inspired by the manner of William Turner, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The young Samuel had a poor technical and formal education and trained substantially as a self-taught, but he studied for a short period at the Merchant Taylors' School.
Through John Linnell, Palmer to nineteen years, in 1824, met William Blake. He was very sensitive to the influence of the works of Blakeː this is evident in his works considered the best, including the landscapes of Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, Kent. Here Palmer had purchased a dilapidated cottage, nicknamed Rat Abbey, where he lived from 1826 to 1835. The area around Shoreham is present in Palmer's paintings in a dilated, almost magical dimension with paradisiacal connotationsː a fantastic and visionary tone, often emphasized by sepia tones, filtered through moonlight and starlight. He also chose mythological and literary themes as the subjects of his canvases. During this stay in the country, Palmer came into contact with a group of Blake's disciples, known as the Ancients, among whom were George Richmond and Edward Calvert. At Shoreham Palmer fell in love with 14-year-old Hannah Linnell, whom he married in 1837. After returning to London in 1835, in search of buyers for his canvases, Palmer executed less mystical and more conventional works, also because his financial situation was slowly declining and to sell he necessarily had to meet the public's taste. He painted mainly agrarian landscapes of Devonshire and Walesː are works full of bucolic and idyllic tranquility, in stark contrast to the violent rural protests that were affecting, at that time, the English countryside. Palmer turned to watercolor once he gained greater notoriety; his palette became more brilliant following a trip to Italy with Hannah in 1837-1839. After the trip with his wife, Palmer was forced to work for patrons of mediocre culture, for more than twenty years: only in 1862, moved to London, he could paint independently and without constraints of commission. The last years of Palmer were ravaged by the death of his beloved son Thomas More Palmer and by the catastrophic financial situation. He died on May 24, 1881 in Redhill, Surrey. Samuel Palmer was forgotten after his death. In 1909 most of his work on Shoreham was destroyed by his son Alfred Herbert Palmer, whose fury did not spare albums, sketches, notebooks, or even paintings. In 1926 Palmer was rediscovered, thanks to a monographic exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, curated by Martin Hardie, Drawings, Etchings and Woodcuts made by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake. The oblivion in which Palmer's art was poured was only totally redeemed in the fifties of the twentieth century, thanks to the popularization of the book Samuel Palmer by Geoffrey Grigson and to an exhibition focused on Shoreham's canvases, to which his name is inextricably linked, even if the paintings of his late maturity are appreciated. Shoreham's works exerted great influence on a number of English artists after their rediscovery; strongly influenced by Palmer were the painters F. L. Griggs, Robin Tanner, Graham Sutherland, Paul Drury, Joseph Webb, Eric Ravilious, and Clifford Harper. A substantial number of Palmer's works are in the Tate Gallery, the British Museum, and galleries in Birmingham and Manchester.
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Samuel Palmer (London, January 25, 1805 - Redhill, May 24, 1881) was an English landscape painter, engraver and writer. Key figure of British Romanticism, Palmer was introduced in 1824 to William Blake. The meeting was decisive, because it allowed him to discover his own nature, prone to visionary. Retired to Shoreham, in Kent, from 1827 to 1832, gathered around him a group of young disciples, enthusiastic about Blake. To the period of Shoreham belongs the most significant production of Palmer: a series of watercolors and oil paintings, in which the theme of meditation on nature is lived with bucolic spirit and is invested with a strong spiritual charge. Samuel Palmer was born in London, in Old Kent Road, on January 27, 1805. He manifested his artistic vocation at the age of twelve, when he made paintings of a religious nature; at the age of fourteen he exhibited his works, inspired by the manner of William Turner, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The young Samuel had a poor technical and formal education and trained substantially as a self-taught, but he studied for a short period at the Merchant Taylors' School.
Through John Linnell, Palmer to nineteen years, in 1824, met William Blake. He was very sensitive to the influence of the works of Blakeː this is evident in his works considered the best, including the landscapes of Shoreham, near Sevenoaks, Kent. Here Palmer had purchased a dilapidated cottage, nicknamed Rat Abbey, where he lived from 1826 to 1835. The area around Shoreham is present in Palmer's paintings in a dilated, almost magical dimension with paradisiacal connotationsː a fantastic and visionary tone, often emphasized by sepia tones, filtered through moonlight and starlight. He also chose mythological and literary themes as the subjects of his canvases. During this stay in the country, Palmer came into contact with a group of Blake's disciples, known as the Ancients, among whom were George Richmond and Edward Calvert. At Shoreham Palmer fell in love with 14-year-old Hannah Linnell, whom he married in 1837. After returning to London in 1835, in search of buyers for his canvases, Palmer executed less mystical and more conventional works, also because his financial situation was slowly declining and to sell he necessarily had to meet the public's taste. He painted mainly agrarian landscapes of Devonshire and Walesː are works full of bucolic and idyllic tranquility, in stark contrast to the violent rural protests that were affecting, at that time, the English countryside. Palmer turned to watercolor once he gained greater notoriety; his palette became more brilliant following a trip to Italy with Hannah in 1837-1839. After the trip with his wife, Palmer was forced to work for patrons of mediocre culture, for more than twenty years: only in 1862, moved to London, he could paint independently and without constraints of commission. The last years of Palmer were ravaged by the death of his beloved son Thomas More Palmer and by the catastrophic financial situation. He died on May 24, 1881 in Redhill, Surrey. Samuel Palmer was forgotten after his death. In 1909 most of his work on Shoreham was destroyed by his son Alfred Herbert Palmer, whose fury did not spare albums, sketches, notebooks, or even paintings. In 1926 Palmer was rediscovered, thanks to a monographic exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, curated by Martin Hardie, Drawings, Etchings and Woodcuts made by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake. The oblivion in which Palmer's art was poured was only totally redeemed in the fifties of the twentieth century, thanks to the popularization of the book Samuel Palmer by Geoffrey Grigson and to an exhibition focused on Shoreham's canvases, to which his name is inextricably linked, even if the paintings of his late maturity are appreciated. Shoreham's works exerted great influence on a number of English artists after their rediscovery; strongly influenced by Palmer were the painters F. L. Griggs, Robin Tanner, Graham Sutherland, Paul Drury, Joseph Webb, Eric Ravilious, and Clifford Harper. A substantial number of Palmer's works are in the Tate Gallery, the British Museum, and galleries in Birmingham and Manchester.
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