Samuel Palmer 1805-1881

With the Fine Art Society, 1881;
J. G. Pilcher, 1961;
Mrs J. G. Pilcher, Her Sale in these Rooms, 9th April 1992, lot 115; bt. by the present owner

London, Society of Painters in Watercolour, 1862, no. 259;
Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, Exhibition of Works of Samuel Palmer, 1961, no.44

'There are some artists who give us a new way of seeing: Samuel Palmer is one of them. He painted familiar scenes - but in a way that had never been done before,' (see William Vaughan, Samuel Palmer; Vision and Landscape, 2005, p. 11).  This powerful statement emphasised the continuing importance of Samuel Palmer's paintings.

The painting offered for sale here is typical of Palmer's Romantic vision. An idealised scene which presents a youthful goatherd reading poetry to two young girls whilst his sheep graze nearby. The outstretched branches of the tree casts dappled shade over the captivated group whilst in the background the bright noonday sun bathes the rolling hill. A small river meanders across a patchwork of fields and disappears into the blue mist of the horizons.

Accompanying the watercolour at the Society of Painters in Watercolour exhibition in 1863 was the following extract; 'the sisters listening to his verse were moved/ And Madeline, the simple goatherd, loved.'

This landscape dates from the early 1860's and reveals the highly finished and richly textured quality which characterises Palmer's mature work. It is in the 'little long' format of approximately 190 by 405 mm which the artist favoured during the middle and later part of his career. The formula of a distant landscape seen from a high viewpoint and illuminated by the sun also occurs in other works by Palmer of the period. Furthermore, the landscape appears to be an amalgam of Italy, Wales and southern England, the three places which most inspired the artist.