Landscape with Stream and Weir

Thomas Gainsborough, 1727–1788

between 1750 and 1753

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A pastoral landscape features a stream with a wooden weir, a cow drinking, and a flock of sheep grazing on a grassy bank. A lone figure rests under a large tree in the foreground. The young Thomas Gainsborough trained with Francis Hayman in London before returning to his native Suffolk in about 1748. In prosperous Ipswich he found a market for landscapes and small portraits (one of which is shown nearby). His earliest landscapes, of which this is an outstanding example, were derived from his careful observation of nature and heavily influenced by the Dutch tradition. The views themselves were almost always imaginary rather than representing particular places and were often painted as decorative overmantels. This picture was acquired by the London silversmith and art dealer Panton "Panny" Betew, a friend of Wi