EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1.
Brief Description of item(s)
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2.
Samuel Palmer (1805-1881)
The Shearers circa 1833-4
Oil and tempera over black chalk on oak
517 x 711 mm
Condition: good
Context
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Provenance:
Alfred (A.H.) Palmer, the artist’s son; his sale, Christie’s, 24 May 1909
(118) bt. Sampson; Christie’s sale, 25 May 1936 (109) bt. F.R.
Meatyard; Leger Galleries, 1937, from whom acquired by Henry
Reitlinger; his sale, Sotheby’s, 27 January 1954 (124) bt. Agnew’s.
Exhibited:
?Royal Academy, 1833 (657, ‘A Kentish Scene’)
Narrative Pictures of the I8th and 19th Centuries, Leger Galleries, 1937 (25)
Samuel Palmer and his Circle. The Shoreham Period, Arts Council,
London1956 and 1957 (57)
Samuel Palmer: A Vision Recaptured: The Complete Etchings and the
Paintings for Milton and for Virgil, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1978-9
(11)
Samuel Palmer and ‘The Ancients’ , Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 1984
(29)
Samuel Palmer, British Museum, London 2005-6 and Metropolitan Museum,
New York 2006 (88)
Literature:
Sacheverell Sitwell, Narrative Pictures, 1937 pp.62-3, 100 repr. Pl.86
Geoffrey Grigson, Samuel Palmer: The Visionary Years, 1947, pp.110-11,
189 no.139 repr. Pl.63
Geoffrey Grigson, Samuel Palmer’s ‘Valley of Vision’, 1960, p.32 repr. pl.47
David Cecil, Visionary and Dreamer: Two Poetic Painters: Samuel Palmer
and Edward Burne-Jones, 1969, repr. pl.44
Raymond Lister, Samuel Palmer and his Etchings, 1969, p.84 repr. Pl.35
James Sellars, Samuel Palmer, 1974, p.87 repr.
Raymond Lister, Samuel Palmer and ‘The Ancients’ , exhibition catalogue,
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 1984, pp.22-3 repr.
Raymond Lister, The Paintings of Samuel Palmer, 1985, repr.pl.31 with text
Raymond Lister, Samuel Palmer: His Life and Art, 1987, pp.63-4, 66 repr.
Raymond Lister, Catalogue Raisonne of the Works of Samuel Palmer, 1988,
p.95, no.178 repr.
Colin Harrison in William Vaughan, Colin Harrison and Elizabeth. E. Barker,
Samuel Palmer, exhibition catalogue, British Museum, London 2005-6 and
Metropolitan Museum, New York 2006, pp.137, 160 repr.
The Faber Gallery: Samuel Palmer 1805-1881, undated, repr. pl.6
3.
Waverley criteria
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Waverley 1: it is so closely connected with our history and national life
that its departure would be a misfortune on the following grounds. It is
a quintessential representation of English pastoral, based on Kentish
scenery around Shoreham, and a climactic, indeed perhaps valedictory
statement of Palmer’s ‘Shoreham Period’ when he created visionary,
poetic and nostalgic work in opposition to the predominant naturalism
of the day. At the same time, the picture reflects tension and unease
associated with contemporary agricultural unrest and the impact of the
Reform Bill
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Waverley 2: It is of outstanding aesthetic significance as one of
Palmer’s largest and most complete landscape paintings; one of a
small group of works in oil (in this case also involving tempera)
associated with Palmer’s Shoreham period; an exceptional
demonstration of the artist’s development as a colourist; and unique in
its dynamic representation of figures and agricultural labour and its
materials
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Waverley 3: It is of outstanding significance for the study of some
particular branch of art, learning or history by its status as a
consummate work of Palmer’s Shoreham period, which has been seen
for much of the past century as a distinct and specially appealing
strand of British Romanticism and also as a major inspiration to PostImpressionism and Neo-Romanticism. At the same time, its portrayal of
farm work sets it apart from the idealism and nostalgia that has
resulted in Palmer’s relegation from some more recent critical
discourse.
DETAILED CASE
1.
Detailed description of item if more than in Executive summary,
and any comments.
The Shearers depicts farm-workers shearing their sheep in a rolling, sunlit
English landscape, seen from the interior of a large barn whose doors are
opened inwards. One youth has already largely shorn one sheep while two
others strain to control the animals awaiting attention. Three young women
are also present, one holding a large bag to collect the newly-cut wool. In the
foreground, inside the barn, is a complex still-life assemblage of farm
implements including another set of shears, basket, pitchfork, small barrel and
bottle of refreshments and a coat and straw hat arranged around or hanging
on a large scythe – the hat marking the artist’s presence in the picture as it is,
as his son described, ‘the large patterned straw hat … one of his father’s most
cherished symbols of his Shoreham days’ (Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer,
1892, pp.47-8). Beyond the group of shearers stretches a lush, golden valley
framed by arching trees and closed off in the distance by sheltering hills. The
lighting is brilliant but autumnal, while the shadows in the barn are a mellow
golden-brown.
Since at least 1824 when he first discovered it, from around 1827 when he
moved there and until 1835, Palmer lived and worked at Shoreham in Kent.
This ‘Shoreham Period’ famously produced his most original work. Inspired by
the self-contained, timeless world of the Darent valley, his wide reading of
literature from Virgil to Milton, his admiration of Blake, study of early ‘primitive’
art and abhorrence of modern urban and commercial life he constructed a
‘visionary’ style of landscape that was personal, emotional and intuitive and
shared mainly with the closed circle of fellow ‘Ancients’ who visited him there.
This vision was, he believed, in a direct continuum from the pastoral world of
Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics and also an expression of his strong religious
faith which equated natural plenty with divine providence and good husbandry
with worship. While Palmer’s Shoreham work has exerted extraordinary
posthumous appeal and continues to do so despite challenges from recent
critics who have focused on more practical and functional depictions of rural
life and landscape, it was at first shared only with a few, was not always
exhibited and was sometimes problematic even within Palmer’s circle. His
future father-in-law, John Linnell, urged him towards a more pragmatic,
commercially-viable view of landscape while even his own son would find
aspects of his early work eccentric or embarrassing.
Towards the mid 1830s, these pressures were hitting their mark and Palmer
was entering a transitional phase. He had begun a gradual and reluctant
withdrawal from Shoreham, dividing his time between Kent and London. He
was painting more in oil. He increased his level of exhibiting, or at least had
his submissions accepted more. He toned down the visionary intensity or
fantasy of his first Kentish work while also heightening the brilliance of his
colouring and the complexities of his technique. He began to look for new
subject-matter, visiting Devon in 1834. He was also much affected by a
changing political climate. As conventionally high Tory and Anglican in his
religious and social views as he was quixotic in his artistic tastes, he was
appalled by the changes wrought by the 1832 Reform Act such as the ending
of the church’s rights to tithes, and his Address to the Electors of West Kent
(published in 1832) was a near-hysterical counterblast, fuelled by fear of
revolution. Meanwhile, there were rick-burnings and riots in the countryside,
including those in Kent associated with ‘Captain Swing’. These were
prompted by hardship or mechanisation as much as any political
radicalisation. But in Palmer they prompted not so much sympathy for the
farm-workers as dismay that his familiar world was falling apart.
Dating from 1833 or 1834, on stylistic grounds and/or because it might be
identifiable with a Royal Academy exhibit of 1833, The Shearers must be
seen against this mingled background although its impact is not made wholly
explicit. Nor, since the 1833 RA picture is not certainly identifiable, was it
necessarily made public and its iconic status among Palmer’s later Shoreham
works has emerged in later exhibitions, beginning in 1933. Clearly, the
background is Kentish, the valley being much the same as in Palmer’s exactly
contemporary Golden Valley (in a New York collection, Lister 174), his
‘broadest and most brilliant panorama’ (Harrison in William Vaughan, Colin
Harrison and Elizabeth. E. Barker 2005-6, p.157). From this time, there are a
number of Shoreham-inspired landscapes in media ranging from
monochrome wash through watercolour and gouache to oil and tempera in
which what A.H. Palmer described as ‘the full vehemence of the true
Shoreham mood’ is tempered by greater realism and recognisable activities
such as harvesting, gleaning or wood-cutting. These move away from idylls
like The Magic Apple Tree (Fitzwilliam Museum, Lister 127) or The HorseChestnut Tree (Ashmolean Museum, Lister 131) in which shepherds languish
or pipe surrounded by their contented flocks. But The Shearers takes this
transformation further than any other work and the prevailing mood is one of
repose. It is exceptional for its size, richness of colour, the urgency and drama
of its narrative and the insistent realism with which the working implements
are presented, even being given greater prominence than the figures who are
using them or have laid them to rest.
These features combine to create at once Palmer’s most ambitious and
assertive picture to date, and his most mysterious. There is a heroic intensity,
even savagery to the way one shearer grasps a struggling sheep or another
wields his blades, while the farm tools are combined in a group of opposing
angles that seems more sinister than picturesque. The upward thrust of the
scythe-blade is especially striking, evoking the passage of time or even the
grim reaper; how significant is it that the artist has hung his hat and coat on its
handle? That the picture is a farewell to a Shoreham now threatened by alien
forces and in which he no longer felt so much at home, but whose natural
setting he found as beautiful as ever might be one interpretation of the picture.
Another, perhaps related, could be that Palmer conceived it as some kind of
companion to the contemporary Sleeping Shepherd (James Fairfax, Lister
179) which is similarly set inside a barn and has a still-life of farm implements
but, outside, depicts night rather than day. The juxtaposition of day and night
was hard-wired into Palmer from many sources including his much loved
‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’ of Milton while these two pictures oppose work
and rest, struggle and peace and also, perhaps, the real and modern to the
ideal since the shepherd is classically sourced from Virgil and an ancient
statue of the sleeping Endymion in the British Museum. The Sleeping
Shepherd is painted in similar media, smaller. But it could have suggested to
Palmer a larger, more highly finished picture in a contrasting, contemporary
vein. The strongest contemporary parallel is with Linnell whose influence was
increasing at this time but about which Palmer felt ambivalent. Linnell seems
to have urged Palmer to study still life as an antidote to visionary fancy and in
general his advice led Palmer away from his hero, Blake. But it must be
remembered that Linnell was also Blake’s patron and a final observation to be
made of The Shearers is that it might be a rare instance of Palmer entering
into Blake’s paradoxical and equivocal view of the fallen natural world. Palmer
usually missed or ignored the tensions implicit in Blake’s depictions of the
pastoral, famously seeing in Blake’s woodcuts for Dr Thornton’s edition of
Virgil only ‘corners of Paradise’ when in fact the narrative of the shepherds
Thenot and Colinet reveals tensions between their old age and youth,
experience and innocence, and an ambiguous relationship to their
surroundings. But the paradise depicted in The Shearers seems an uneasy
one.
The picture is the largest of the small group of oils (or oils with mixed media)
painted by Palmer at Shoreham. These were usually painted on thick wood
panels, of mahogany or oak, but in several cases on paper than laid on to the
panel. Not all are known today but of those that are the majority remain in the
UK. These are: The Gleaning Field (Tate, Lister 164); The Bright Cloud (City
Art Galleries Manchester, Lister 169); Scene at Underriver (private collection,
Lister 170); Cornfield (Ashmolean Museum, Lister 171); and The White Cloud
(private collection, Lister 175). Another, The Gleaning Field (Lister 167,
whereabouts unknown) may have resurfaced recently and is in the UK.
Outside the UK are The Harvest Moon (Yale Center for British Art, Lister 168)
while The Sleeping Shepherd is to be sold in New York in January. Two
drawings for the still life foreground are recorded, one known from
reproduction as a frontispiece in A. H. Palmer’s Memoir and the other in the
Yale Center for British Art (Lister 176, 177).
The picture is in excellent condition, stable and its colour retaining its
brilliance.
2.
Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item.
The exceptional character and significance of The Shearers has long been
recognised. It was inherited by A. H. Palmer, the artist’s son, who was the first
to write on the oils of the Shoreham period (eg. Life and Letters, p.46).
Subsequently it has been in important collections including that of Henry
Reitlinger and has been shown in the major exhibitions of Palmer and his
circle where its outstanding position among the works associated with
Shoreham and also the artist’s output as an oil painter has been confirmed.
For Lister it was ‘one of the most spectacular of Palmer’s late Shoreham
works’ (Lister 1984, p.23) while for Harrison it is ‘Palmer’s most ambitious
work before his journey to Italy [and] also one of his most enigmatic’ (Harrison
in William Vaughan, Colin Harrison and Elizabeth. E. Barker 2005-6, p.160).
The picture has more obvious claims to being an exhibition piece than almost
anything painted by Palmer to date, but whether it was indeed exhibited, in
1833 or another year, has not been confirmed. Palmer’s titles were not always
very descriptive and the fact that some works remain untraced has further
hampered identification of exhibited works. If however Palmer did not show it,
this might indicate that he thought the completed result of what was clearly an
experiment was somehow unsatisfactory. While the landscape background is
one of the loveliest of his Shoreham idylls and technically the work is a tour de
force carrying Palmer’s brilliant colouring and combination of jewel-like
stippling and cross-hatching to new heights, the figures and still life are highly
distinctive, as noted in Part 1.
The Kentish setting gives the picture local importance but Palmer’s position as
a Romantic artist and the special significance of his Shoreham period in his
lifetime and afterwards ensures that it has national standing too. Arguably,
this is the climactic work of the Shoreham period and it deserves to be seen in
a suitable context. Works most closely related have been noted in Part 1. Of
British public collections, the Ashmolean Museum is richest in work of
Palmer’s Shoreham period and in associated holdings including the
correspondence of A.H. Palmer and F.L. Griggs, the latter an artist and etcher
of the post-Romantic circle influenced by Palmer in the early twentieth
century. I am aware that the Ashmolean takes a strong interest in The
Shearers but also that the extremely high value set on the work in recent
years has made it difficult for British collections to pursue it as actively as they
would wish.
Name of Expert Adviser and Institution:
David Blayney Brown
Curator of 18th and 19th century British Art, Tate Collection, Tate Britain
Date: 16 November 2009