Artist: Sir Thomas Gainsborough (English, (baptised 1727 – 1788)
Title: The Brook by the Bay
Medium: Antique steel engraving on wove paper after the original by Master Engraver Joseph Clayton Bentley (English, 1809–1851).
Signature: Signed in the plate.
Dimensions: Image Size – 7 3/4 x 9 1/4 inches.
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 17 x 18 inches.
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
Wooded landscape at sunset, cart horses drinking at a brook, the driver standing on a small wooden bridge on the left, a woman and child sitting in the cart which stands on the sloping bank behind to right.
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterized by a light palette and easy strokes. He preferred landscapes to portraits, and is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.