Landscape with Figures Collecting Wood Beneath Gnarled Trees
Medium
Etching, soft-ground etching and aquatint, printed in brown ink
Dimensions
Sheet (trimmed and mounted): 11 5/8 × 14 9/16 in. (29.5 × 37 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.533.338
Art Historical Context
In the serene *Landscape with Figures Collecting Wood Beneath Gnarled Trees*, created in 1789, visitors encounter a captivating print attributed to Thomas Gainsborough alongside collaborators Carl Friedrich Abel, John Thane, and Thomas Rowlandson. Gainsborough, a leading British artist of the Rococo and early Romantic movements, was renowned for his fluid landscapes that evoked the wild beauty of the English countryside. Here, humble figures gather wood beneath dramatically twisted trees, blending everyday rural life with nature's untamed drama—a hallmark of his poetic style. This work exempl...
About the Artist
Thomas Gainsborough|Carl Friedrich Abel|John Thane|Thomas Rowlandson · 1727–1788
Thomas Gainsborough was born on 14 May 1727 in Sudbury, Suffolk, the youngest of nine children to wool dealer John Gainsborough and his wife Mary. Demonstrating prodigious talent from childhood, he sketched landscapes in the local woods and fields, fostering his lifelong passion for the genre. At age thirteen, he moved to London, where he trained under the French engraver and illustrator Hubert-Fr...