Sir George Clausen
The Plough, 1893
pencil and watercolour, heightened with touches of bodycolour and with scratching out on paper laid down on board
33 x 55.5 cm.
Although he had forsaken the strict documentary Naturalism of Bastien-Lepage by the start of 1894, George Clausen remained deeply committed to rural subject matter. Living at Widdington in Essex, some...
Although he had forsaken the strict documentary Naturalism of Bastien-Lepage by the start of 1894, George Clausen remained deeply committed to rural subject matter. Living at Widdington in Essex, some 50 miles from London, he was surrounded by an open arable landscape, worked by local families, whose crops helped to support the ever-expanding metropolis. The land itself was elemental and an abandoned plough symbolized good husbandry and nature’s bounty, just as the discarded harrow had for Jean-François Millet. [2]
Ten years earlier Clausen had sketched his first ploughing scenes, and in 1884 used the motif for the design of his ex libris label (fig. 1). [3]
It was only in 1889 that he completed the monumental Ploughing (Aberdeen Art Gallery) in which a ploughboy with his ‘wand’ leads the horses, plough and aged ploughman across a field in Berkshire on a grey day in early spring. [4] This large work had recently been sold in 1893, and it may have prompted a return to the subject in the much admired Turning the Plough (unlocated), his principal Royal Academy exhibit of the following year. Its completion overlaps with the present watercolour and the reworking of a powerful image that for ten years had remained dormant. [5]
After the completion of the current watercolour, the motif, isolated and abandoned, was something that merited further investigation in an oil version sold in these Rooms, 8 March 1990, lot 48 and an uncatalogued etching.[6]
These flames were rekindled by the present watercolour. It caught the eye of one critic when exhibited in London, in that a ‘mere field and abandoned plough’ was sufficient to inspire the artist ‘as foreground to his delicately observed moonrise’.[7]
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for this catalogue entry.
Ten years earlier Clausen had sketched his first ploughing scenes, and in 1884 used the motif for the design of his ex libris label (fig. 1). [3]
It was only in 1889 that he completed the monumental Ploughing (Aberdeen Art Gallery) in which a ploughboy with his ‘wand’ leads the horses, plough and aged ploughman across a field in Berkshire on a grey day in early spring. [4] This large work had recently been sold in 1893, and it may have prompted a return to the subject in the much admired Turning the Plough (unlocated), his principal Royal Academy exhibit of the following year. Its completion overlaps with the present watercolour and the reworking of a powerful image that for ten years had remained dormant. [5]
After the completion of the current watercolour, the motif, isolated and abandoned, was something that merited further investigation in an oil version sold in these Rooms, 8 March 1990, lot 48 and an uncatalogued etching.[6]
These flames were rekindled by the present watercolour. It caught the eye of one critic when exhibited in London, in that a ‘mere field and abandoned plough’ was sufficient to inspire the artist ‘as foreground to his delicately observed moonrise’.[7]
We are grateful to Professor Kenneth McConkey for this catalogue entry.
Provenance
with The Goupil Gallery, London, by 1894.
Private Collection.
with William Rivett, Gainsborough Gallery, London.
Private Collection
Literature
London, Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours, 1894, no. 209, illustrated fig. 17.2
of
2