Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/thomas-gainsborough-199" aria-label="More by Thomas Gainsborough" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Thomas Gainsborough</a>
Landscape with Gipsies
Bequeathed by Mrs Arthur James 1948
actions: postures and motions
adults
animals: mammals
baby
campfire
children
cooking
domestic
donkey
ethnicity
firewood
gathering wood
group
groups
gypsy
heating and lighting
kitchen
landscape
man
natural phenomena
objects
people
pot
riding
sitting
smoke
society
transport: land
woman
wooded
work and occupations
<p>In this unfinished painting, Gainsborough explored for the first time the subject of gypsies or peasants gathered round a camp fire. While the subject of gypsies had precedents in seventeenth-century Dutch, Flemish and Italian art, Gainsborough appears to have been the first British painter to have explored the theme in depth and made it the focus of at least three paintings.</p>
painting oil paint canvas
15 September 2012 – 5 May 2013
2013-05-05
15 September 2012 – 14 January 2013
2013-01-14
2012-09-15
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (Paris, France)
4 February 2013 – 5 May 2013
2013-05-05
2013-02-04
Fundacíon Mapfre (Madrid, Spain)
2012-09-15
Bohemias
Loan-out
26 October 2024 – 5 January 2025
2025-01-05
26 October 2024 – 5 January 2025
2025-01-05
2024-10-26
Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum (Worcester, UK)
2024-10-26
Atchin Tan- Travelling Through Art
Loan-out
Landscape with Gipsies
support: 483 × 622 mm
frame: 689 × 816 × 84 mm
Bequeathed by Mrs Arthur James 1948
<p>In this unfinished <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>, Gainsborough explored for the first time the subject of gypsies or peasants gathered round a camp fire. While the subject of gypsies had precedents in seventeenth-century Dutch, Flemish and Italian art, Gainsborough appears to have been the first British painter to have explored the theme in depth and made it the focus of at least three paintings.
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<br/>While it is sometimes uncertain whether such figures are peasants relaxing and eating in the open air or true gypsies, living a nomadic outdoor life, the evidence (provided by Gainsborough’s title of the later <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraving</span></a> of the subject) suggests that the figures here are gypsies. Eighteenth-century social attitudes towards gypsies (as found in the literature of the period) were that they were a rather sinister yet nevertheless fascinating underclass.
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<br/>The motif of figures around a fire had appeared in Gainsborough’s <i>Wooded Landscape with Mounted Peasant on a Country Track </i>(Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) of around the same date, although the group is placed in the middle-distance amongst dark woodland foliage. Here, the group of gypsies forms the focus of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> in what is the first of Gainsborough’s <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a> in which figures of any kind predominate. They are gathered under a large oak tree, with a family beside a heavily laden donkey close to the tree, with three further figures sitting around a cooking pot. They are shown in a  state of repose, smoking pipes and warming themselves around a comforting fire, in anticipation of a hot meal.
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<br/>The picture is believed to date from around 1753-4 and to have been commissioned by a gentleman in Ipswich. According to a story cited by Walter Thornbury in his <i>Life of J.M. W. Turner, R.A.</i> (1862, II, pp.59-60), Gainsborough slashed the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> in a temper when the client claimed he did not like it.  Two slashes across the picture are detectable, so the story may well be true. The picture was subsequently rescued by, or given to, Gainsborough’s friend, Joshua Kirby (1716-74) who had it repaired.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The composition is centred around the dominant tree, and only this detail and the figure group have been worked up to any degree of finish. Much of the foreground and left-hand side have simply been blocked out in dead colour (or underpaint) and have been left unfinished. The tree and group of gypsies are centrally placed in this horizontal composition, but Gainsborough’s next painting on the theme, <i>The Gypsies</i>, c.1758, was a vertical arrangement, with a more complex grouping of figures. This more elaborate restatement of the subject was once owned by Thomas William, 1<span>st</span> Earl of Lichfeld (1795-1854), although its present whereabouts are unknown. A version, believed by most scholars to be a copy of the lost original, was sold at Sotheby’s July 4 2001 (lot 70). The Lichfeld painting was the basis for Gainsborough’s famous <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>print</span></a> <i>The Gypsies</i>. For this project, possibly proposed by Joshua Kirby, Gainsborough executed his own outline <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/etching" title="Glossary definition for 'Etching'"><span>etchings</span></a> in around 1758, and the plate was then passed to the professional engraver Joseph Wood for completion. The publication was announced in an advertisement in the <i>Public Advertiser</i> of 14 October 1758 and was subsequently published as a pair with Richard Wilson’s <i>Lake Nemi</i>, in March 1759.
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<br/><i>The Gypsies</i> was the first print to be published commercially after one of Gainsborough’s paintings. The fact that the publication coincided with Gainsborough’s recent arrival in fashionable Bath is significant. At a time when he would have been intent on establishing his reputation, the choice of <i>The Gypsies</i> surely indicates the subject’s importance for him, as one that he was proud to have stand as a testament to his abilities in landscape painting.
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<br/>The artist’s final treatment of the theme was in <i>Gypsy Encampment, Sunset</i> (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gainsborough-encampment-at-sunset-n05803" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05803</span></a>), c.1778-80. While this was clearly derived from these earlier explorations, the emphasis was more on the landscape and atmospheric light than on the activities of the lively figures, as seen here.
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<br/><b>Further Reading</b></p>
<p>Ellis Waterhouse, <i>Gainsborough,</i> 1958, no. 864
<br/>John Hayes, <i>The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough</i>, 2 vols, 1982, p. 477, no.122, reproduced
<br/>Susan Sloman, <i>Gainsborough in Bath</i>, 2002, pp.141-5
<br/>Martin Postle, <i>Thomas Gainsborough</i>, 2002, p.31, reproduced
<br/>Michael Rosenthal and Martin Myrone eds., <i>Gainsborough</i>, Tate exhibition catalogue, 2002, p.31, reproduced fig.23, p.32
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<br/>Diane Perkins
<br/>October 2003</p>

Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
actions: postures and motions adults animals: mammals baby campfire children cooking domestic donkey ethnicity firewood gathering wood group groups gypsy heating and lighting kitchen landscape man natural phenomena objects people pot riding sitting smoke society transport: land woman wooded work and occupations