Wooded Landscape with Old Peasant and Donkeys outside a Barn, Ploughshare and Distant Church

This Suffolk landscape was painted when Gainsborough was resident in Ipswich and has all the elements of the drawing books that the artist used when he was a boy; the familiar Dutch inspired peasant life, burdock leaves in the foreground, the crumbling stable and fence, all set within very simply ordered pictorial space. The toothless old peasant, here seen looking to the distant church tower is familiar in Gainsborough’s drawings, but it is unusual for him to make this the central character of a landscape. Its subject matter is elegiac and reflective in its theme of twilight; both the twilight of day and the twilight of life. The peasant looks toward the churchyard, which will soon become his permanent home. The plough is at rest in the midground with tired donkeys in the foreground. The wonderful observation of the dog sniffing the donkeys is typical of Gainsborough’s accurate depictions and wistful reflections. The familiar burdock leaves in the left of the picture and the crude picturesque stable all reflect the rosy glow of the evening.

Accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by H M Government and allocated to Gainsborough's House, 2015