The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

A Herdsman with Three Cows by an Upland Pool

mid-1780s

Thomas Gainsborough

(British, 1727–1788)
England, 18th century
watercolor, ink and oil paint heightened with white chalk ("Bristol lead white")
Sheet: 21.9 x 31.3 cm (8 5/8 x 12 5/16 in.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2006.156
Catalogue raisonné: Hayes 731
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Following the instruction of the influential painter and writer Jonathan Richardson, Gainsborough often arranged his landscape compositions with the brightest passage—here, the white cow and billowing clouds—near the center.

Description

Although he was one of the most celebrated society portraitists of his day, landscape painting was Thomas Gainsborough’s love and lifelong pleasure. Here, delicate layers of watercolor, ink, oil paint, and chalk result in a jewel-like work on paper. The composition combines the rural scene of a herdsman and three cows with an imagined, majestic mountain view, mingling the pastoral with the sublime. The sheet was among a group of 14 landscape drawings that Gainsborough selected as a gift for a close friend.
  • ?-?
    Goodenough Earle, Barton Grange, Somerset, England
    ?-1794
    Francis Miller Newton, by descent to Josepha Sophia Newton
    1848-?
    Josepha Sophia Newton
    ?-1913
    Francis Wheat Newton
    1913-1914
    (Agnew's, London)
    1914
    (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, NY)
    ?-?
    George D. Widener [1889-1971], Philadelphia
    ?-?
    Private collection, by descent to private collection, United States
    ?-1989
    Private collection, United States
    after 1989-2005
    David Lee, UK, by descent to private collection
    2005
    Private collection
    2005-2006
    (Lowell Libson, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    2006-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Fulcher, George. The Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856. Mentioned: p. 241
    Hayes, John. "The Gainsborough Drawings from Barton Grange: Eight Published for the First Time." Connoisseur 161 (February 1966): 86-93. Mentioned: pp. 86-93; Reproduced: fig. 14
    Hayes, John. The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough. New Haven: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1971. Mentioned: vol. 1, p. 276, no. 731; Reproduced: vol. 2, pl. 214
    Hayes, John. Thomas Gainsborough. Exh. Cat. London: Tate Gallery, 1980. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 70-71, no. 47
    Hayes, John and Lindsay Stainton. Gainsborough Drawings. Exh. Cat. Washington, DC: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1983. Mentioned: p. 174, no. 79; Reproduced: facing page
    Libson, Lowell, Hugh Belsey, and Peter Bower. Thomas Gainsborough: Themes and Variations, the Art of Landscape. Exh. Cat. London: Lowell Libson, 2003. Mentioned: pp. 13, 18-19, 40-42, no. 5; Reproduced: pp. 18-19, 40-42
    Litt, Steven. "Museum Buys Rembrandt and Gainsborough Works." Plain Dealer (December 5, 2006): E1, E4. Mentioned: p. E4; Reproduced: p. E1
    Lemonedes, Heather. "Quintessentially British." Cleveland Art (July/August 2007). Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 8-11
    Belsey, Hugh. "Drawing for Its Own Sake: Five Landscapes by Thomas Gainsborough." In British Painting, Watercolours, and Drawings, ed. Lowell Libson. Exh. Cat. London: Lowell Libson, 2011. Mentioned: pp. 15-19; Reproduced: fig. 5
    Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: pp. 38-41, 145, no. 9a; Reproduced: p. 39
    Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd. Recent Acquisitions 2023 : Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd. London: Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker Ltd British Art, 2022. Reproduced: p. 12
  • British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
    Thomas Gainsborough: Themes and Variations, The Art of Landscape. Lowell Libson, London (May 2003).
    Gainsborough Drawings. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (October 2 - December 4, 1983); Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (December 17, 1983 - February 12, 1984); Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT (February 25 - April 22, 1984).
    Thomas Gainsborough. Tate Gallery, London (October 8, 1980 - January 4, 1981).
  • {{cite web|title=A Herdsman with Three Cows by an Upland Pool|url=false|author=Thomas Gainsborough|year=mid-1780s|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2006.156