Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-lambert-318" aria-label="More by George Lambert" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">George Lambert</a>
A Box Hill Surrey
Purchased 1951
adults
agriculture and fishing
agriculture, gardening & fishing
art and craft
Box Hill
corn
drawing
eating and drinking
England
England, South East
England, Southern
farmland
group
groups
harvesting
hill
landscape
leisure and pastimes
man
natural phenomena
objects
people
picnic
places
plants and flowers
scythe
shadow
sunshine
Surrey
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
weather
woman
wooded
work and occupations
<p>Lambert was one of the pioneers of landscape painting in early eighteenth-century Britain.</p><p>This painting presents the landscape without the sorts of buildings –palaces or an aristocratic estate – which traditionally featured in such views. Is this evidence of a new appreciation of nature for its own sake? Certainly, landscape became the focus for discussions about the relationship between painting and poetry, and aesthetic ideas such as beauty and the sublime.</p><p><em>Gallery label, March 2011</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
22 October 2001 – 23 March 2003
2003-03-23
22 October 2001 – 23 March 2003
2003-03-23
2001-10-22
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-22
Landscape and Empire
Collection based display
12 July 2004 – 20 June 2005
2005-06-20
12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-07-12
Portraits and Perspectives
Collection based display
11 November 2010 – 20 November 2011
2011-11-20
11 November 2010 – 20 November 2011
2011-11-20
2010-11-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-11-11
Court, Country, City
Collection based display
26 March 2015 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
26 March 2015 – 21 June 2015
2015-06-21
2015-03-26
Museo Nacional de Arte (Mexico City, Mexico)
18 July 2015 – 18 October 2015
2015-10-18
2015-07-18
Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo, Brazil)
2015-03-26
British Landscape
Tate partnerships & programmes
A View of Box Hill, Surrey
support: 908 × 1804 mm
frame: 1035 × 1978 × 86 mm
Purchased 1951
<p>Lambert was one of the pioneers of landscape painting in early eighteenth-century Britain. 
<br/>
<br/>This painting presents the landscape without the sorts of buildings –palaces or an aristocratic estate – which traditionally featured in such views. Is this evidence of a new appreciation of nature for its own sake? Certainly, landscape became the focus for discussions about the relationship between painting and poetry, and aesthetic ideas such as beauty and the sublime.</p>

Display caption
2011-03-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><span>George Lambert painted A View of Box Hill, Surrey in 1733.  It was executed on a single piece of linen canvas with a plain 1 x 1 weave.  The linen was coated with a thin layer of grey, oil based primer applied evenly and without texture.  There is no evidence of initial preparation or underdrawing.  </span>
<br/>
<br/><span>The composition is built up using opaque to semi-opaque oil paint with some transparent browns. Throughout the sky there is a slight amount of texture visible imparted by the wide sweeping brushstrokes used to lay down the base colour.  Impasto is minimal and seen only in the more thickly applied paint of the highlights.  Forms are defined by visible brushwork with little blending.  No initial drawing or preparation is apparent.  A pentimenti is visible where the figure yielding the scythe has been repositioned to be facing right.</span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Previous to entering the collection the painting was taken off the original stretcher and placed onto a smaller one.  The excess canvas at left and right was folded onto the back of the stretcher and the painting secured with tacks applied through the painted canvas.  Extensive paint loss occurs along the fold over edge and around the tack holes. Stretcher bar cracks corresponding to this smaller auxiliary support are visible.   The appearance of the paint film has been affected by many areas of blanching.  In most instances, the hazy, whitish effect is only mildly disturbing.  However, there are areas of severe blanching that appear to be related to a particular green paint found in the hedge trees in the middle ground and as highlights on leaves elsewhere.  Apart from the losses and blanching, the paint itself is in good condition.  A general network of age cracks is present across the painting.  The varnish has yellowed and decreased in its saturation.  A light layer of dirt covers the front and reverse.  </span>
<br/>
<br/><span>Julie Simek</span>
<br/><span>October 2001</span>
<br/></p>

Technique and condition
2003-10-10T00:00:00
technique-and-condition
TECHNIQUE_AND_CONDITION_TEXT
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lambert-a-view-of-box-hill-surrey-n05981" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05981</span></a> <b>A View of Box Hill, Surrey</b> 1733
<br/></p>
<p>Oil on canvas 908×1842 (35 3/4×72 1/2). The painting was once folded back at least 12 in (305 mm) on the left to fit a smaller stretcher
<br/>Inscribed ‘G. Lambert 1733’ centre foreground
<br/>Purchased (Grant-in-Aid) 1951
<br/>PROVENANCE ...; in the Bedford Collection at Woburn Abbey by May 1802; Bedford Sale, Christie's 19 January 1951 (29) bt Agnew for the Tate Gallery
<br/>EXHIBITED Kenwood 1970 (5, repr.); <i>Landscape in Britain c. 1750–1850</i>, Tate Gallery 1973–4 (29, repr.); <i>Pittura inglese 1660–1840</i>, Palazzo Reale, Milan 1975 (45, repr. pl.III in col.)
<br/>LITERATURE J. Hayes, ‘British Patronage and Landscape Painting - IV’, <i>Apollo,</i> CXXXV, 1967, p.256; R. Paulson, ‘Hogarth the Painter: The Exhibition at the Tate’, <i>Burlington Magazine,</i> CXIV, 1972, p.72, fig.9 (detail); Luke Herrmann, <i>British Landscape Painting of the Eighteenth Century,</i> 1973, pl.I (col.); D. Piper (ed.), <i>The Genius of British Painting</i>, 1975, p.182, repr.; J. Sunderland, <i>Painting in Britain 1525–1975</i>, 1976, p.232, fig.49; J. Barrell, <i>The Dark Side of the Landscape</i>, 1980, pp.42–8, repr. p.43; M. Rosenthal, <i>British Landscape Painting</i>, 1982, pp.30, 38, fig.22; H. Prince, ‘Landscape through Painting’, <i>Geography</i>, LXIX, no.302, pt.I, 1984, pp.11–12, fig.7
<br/>
<br/>It has now been established that this is a view of Box Hill, Surrey, showing the Mole Gap, and the Mickleham Downs on the left, seen from some point on Ranmore Common. It has also been plausibly suggested that the viewpoint is taken from the former Denbies Carriage Drive, now part of the North Downs Way (letter of 8 September 1984 from Ethel Clear of the Dorking Museum). Denbies was at this date a small farm on the slopes of the North Downs which was bought in 1734 by Jonathan Tyers, manager of Vauxhall Gardens and soon to become a notable patron of British artists. Tyers (1702–67) was intimate with the convivial artistic fraternity of St Martin's Lane to which Hogarth, Hayman and Lambert belonged, and it is possible that this <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> of 1733, and its companion in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, relate in some way to Tyers's acquisition of Denbies the following year (for the fullest history of Tyers's estate see Brian Allen, ‘Jonathan Tyers's Other Garden’, <i>Journal of Garden History</i>, I, no.3, 1981, pp.215–38). There is, however, no record of Tyers ever having owned such a view or views. Prominent in the foreground are three gentlemen, one of whom is working at a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> board, while another man lies on the ground beside a picnic basket, pointing sadly at an overturned wine bottle. Harvesting is in progress in the cornfield on the right, with one labourer at work, while the other sharpens his scythe in the shade, beside a countrywoman seated on the ground with a leather ale bottle by her side. Another is walking along the path through the corn with a child in her arms, and there are other figures in the distance, including a man on horseback approaching along the edge of the cornfield.
<br/></p>
<p>N05981Lambert's method of painting views was to make an accurate on-the-spot drawing of the topography, and then to ‘frame’ the scene on <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> with wings of decorative trees or shrubs and a built-up foreground with appropriate, usually fanciful, figures. The latter were usually painted by other hands - as probably in this case - but their importance in the general <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> is demonstrated by frequent <i>pentimenti</i> showing careful adjustments: here it can be clearly seen that the active labourer originally swung his scythe to the left. It cannot be entirely ruled out that some of the figures may be by Lambert himself, since he is said to have owned drawings by Hogarth for his use as models. The British Museum has a wash drawing by Hogarth (no.1953-2-18-1) of a labourer with a scythe, inscribed in an old hand ‘This &amp; the following 6 Sketches were made from Nature by Hogarth for his Friend George Lambert ye Landskape Painter’; it is presumably one of seven such sketches which belonged to Samuel Ireland (his sale Christie's 6 May 1797, lot 131). As has been pointed out by Barrell and others, two reapers would be far from sufficient to harvest a field of this size; like the framing trees and 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/p/picturesque" title="Glossary definition for 'Picturesque'"><span>picturesque</span></a> cloud formations, the figures are there to give appropriate animation to 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/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> rather than to record actual agricultural methods.
<br/>
<br/>Both paintings are first recorded, already showing their difference in size, in ‘The List of Pictures with their Dispositions and Size as placed at Woburn Abbey May 1802’ (MS Bedford Office, London), according to which the ‘Landscape - with Mowers of Corn at Bottom - 5.1-3.0’ was in the West Attic and the ‘Landscape Hills and Fields (the fellow to one in W. Attic) - 4.5-2.11’ in the Lumber Room. One can also speculate that the paintings may have been commissioned by John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, possibly as a record of favourite outing places near his house in Surrey. Before inheriting the Dukedom and Woburn Abbey on the death of his brother in October 1732, he and his wife Diana Spencer were furnishing a modest house in the village of Cheam. They enjoyed taking the air on Banstead Downs, and were almost certainly familiar with the nearby beauty spot of Box Hill (G. Blakiston, <i>Woburn and the Russells</i>, 1980, p.98). When his formidable mother-in-law, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, inspected the Cheam house on 2 April 1732, she considered it ‘a very pleasing habitation, particularly as it was within half a mile of the finest downs and best air in England, and within two hours of driving from London’ (Gladys Scott Thomson, <i>Letters of a Grandmother</i>, 1943, p.18). She goes on to compare it very favourably with Lord Herbert's recently built Westcombe House at Blackheath, which Diana's brother John Spencer seems to have thought of buying. Diana, however, had on some previous visit liked it or, as her grandmother put it, it was ‘a place I am fearful you once commended to me’ (ibid. p.21), and she was also impressed by Lord Herbert's plans for Wilton, which she visited in July 1732 (ibid.p.52).
<br/>
<br/>Significantly, at least two of Lambert's set of four fine views of Westcombe House, now at Wilton, can still be seen to be dated 1733, and it is possible that Lord Herbert (who became the 9th Earl of Pembroke in January 1733) recommended Lambert to the Bedfords. His work must have met with approval, because according to George Scharf (<i>Catalogue of Pictures at Woburn Abbey,</i> privately printed 1890) there were at least nine other pictures by Lambert in the Woburn Collection, most of them <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/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a> scenes, all of which bar one, have left the collection. Those that can still be identified do not seem to be autograph works, though very much in his style, and may have been executed in collaboration with pupils or assistants.
<br/>
<br/>The compilers gratefully acknowledge topographical information given by L.H. Locock, J.H.P. Sankey, R.S.R. Fitter and C.M. O'Brien.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, <i>The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-08T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults agriculture and fishing agriculture, gardening & fishing art and craft Box Hill corn drawing eating and drinking England England, South East England, Southern farmland group groups harvesting hill landscape leisure and pastimes man natural phenomena objects people picnic places plants and flowers scythe shadow sunshine Surrey UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features weather woman wooded work and occupations