Shepherd Boy Playing a Flute

John Linnell, 1792–1882

1831

Oil on panel

Yale Center for British Art

A young shepherd boy in a hat and tunic plays a flute while standing next to a sheep and a dog. He holds a staff in his right hand. The scene is set in a pastoral landscape with trees and rolling hills in the background. This is a small replica of the painting The Farmer’s Boy, which John Linnell exhibited in London in 1830. He began making studies for the painting in 1828 when visiting Samuel Palmer in Shoreham, Kent. Linnell’s young shepherd reflects the painter’s belief in the inherent nobility and virtue of ordinary rural laborers, particularly shepherds, given that Christ identified himself as the Good Shepherd. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection