_-_Margaret_Gainsborough_gleaning_-_WA1975.72_-_Ashmolean_Museum.jpg&width=1200)
Margaret Gainsborough gleaning
Thomas Gainsborough·1750
Historical Context
Gainsborough's Margaret Gainsborough Gleaning of around 1750 depicts his daughter in a genre scene of the harvest field — the traditional practice of gleaning, by which the rural poor gathered leftover grain after reaping — combining family affection with social observation. Margaret's portrait in working dress and her activity among the harvested field creates an unusually democratic subject for a painter whose practice was dominated by fashionable society portraiture, reflecting the continuing influence of his Suffolk agricultural formation.
Technical Analysis
The painting of Gainsborough's own child brings out his most natural and affectionate handling, the figure placed in a landscape setting that reflects his characteristic integration of the human and the natural. The warmth of the palette and the softness of the brushwork convey paternal tenderness.
Look Closer
- ◆Notice that Gainsborough depicted his own daughter Margaret gleaning — the traditional practice of gathering leftover grain after harvest, usually associated with the rural poor — placing her within the agricultural working life of Suffolk.
- ◆Look at the warmth and paternal tenderness in the handling: painting his own child brought out Gainsborough's most natural and affectionate touch.
- ◆Observe the landscape integration: Margaret in working dress in a harvest field creates an unusually democratic subject for a painter whose practice was dominated by fashionable portraiture.
- ◆Find the specific harvest light: the quality of late-summer light on a gleaned field is observed with the same attention Gainsborough brought to his more formal landscape compositions.
_MET_DP162180.jpg&width=600)
