Encapsulating the finest qualities of Gainsborough's late romantic style, this tranquil landscape of rustic simplicity was painted circa 1786 as one of a pair. This work's companion, Wooded Landscape with Cows, Sheep, and a Herdsman by a Pool, achieved the artist's auction record at the time when it was sold in 2008.¹ Gainsborough himself exhibited the landscape duet at his gallery at Schomberg House, on Pall Mall. The composition is derived from several drawings executed by Gainsborough in the late 1770s and a simpler version of the landscape, painted circa 1778-1780, is today at the Tate Britain (inv. no. N05803). Grouping man and beast at the center of a lush, verdant landscape, Gainsborough creates a sense of harmonious unity. Indeed, leading Gainsborough scholar Hugh Belsey described the present work as possessing a "melodic elegance," a quality accentuated by the confident handling of the paint and subtlety of chromatic tonality.

Both this painting and its pair were likely purchased directly from the artist by Robert Palmer, a successful solicitor who lived in Great Russell Street and served as the Chief Steward to the 4th Duke of Bedford. Acting as the latter's principal agent in the 1770s and 1780s, Palmer oversaw the planning and construction of London's Bedford Square, built between 1775 and 1784. Both Palmer and the Duke owned works by Gainsborough and commissioned their own portraits from him, the Duke in the 1760s and Palmer in 1783.

¹ New York, Christie's, 15 April 2008, lot 57, where sold for $5,752,000. The two works remained together until the 1916 sale of Palmer's descendant, where they were acquired by Agnew's and subsequently separated.