Cottage Door

Maker Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-1788)

Collections

British Paintings

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Dateca. 1780

Mediumoil on canvas

Dimensionscanvas: 58 1/4 × 47 1/4 in. (148 × 120 cm.) frame: 71 × 59 3/4 × 5 in. (180.3 × 151.8 × 12.7 cm.)

DescriptionIn the right center foreground, a woman holding an infant, with five young children about her, stands before the open door of a cottage overhung by trees. In the left foreground, a torrent, over which a wooden bridge leads, left, to a middle distance of fields and willows. A stricken tree and coltsfoot in the right foreground. Clouded blue sky at top, with rosy clouds over the horizon on the left.

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

Label TextIn this genteel fantasy of rural life, a mother and her children are nestled beneath overhanging trees. Dramatic effects of light and shade spotlight the cottage and figures, conveying the warm atmosphere of a summer evening. Gainsborough painted numerous renditions of this theme, all of which express his imaginative ideal of English rustic life, where the reality of poverty and hard labor is replaced by wholesome simplicity and robust health.

Status

On view

Object number22.3