Thomas Gainsborough, 'The Market Cart', 1786
About the work
Overview
A horse-drawn cart trundles along a woodland path on the way to market. Two boys and their dog walk alongside its giant wheel, while two girls sit perched on top of the produce. Carrots spill out of a basket, and turnips, potatoes and cabbages are loosely piled in. The older girl raises one arm, perhaps to shade her eyes from the flickering sunlight as they pass beneath the trees, or in response to the woodsman gathering firewood.Two weary travellers rest beside the road with their baskets, bundles and dog.
This is one of Gainsborough’s last landscapes, painted about 18 months before he died. The original position of the horse’s head, which was nearer the cart, can now be seen through the paint.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- The Market Cart
- Artist
- Thomas Gainsborough
- Artist dates
- 1727 - 1788
- Date made
- 1786
- Medium and support
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 184 × 153 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Presented by the Governors of the British Institution, 1830
- Inventory number
- NG80
- Location
- Room 34
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Frame
- 18th-century English Frame
Provenance
Purchased from the artist in or by May 1787, for 350 guineas, by Sir Peter Burrell Bt, MP (cr. 1st Baron Gwydir 1796); his sale, Christie’s 8–9 May 1829, 2nd day (87), as A Grand Upright Landscape, with Figures, representing peasants with a market cart making their way over the uneven surface of a glade..., 1050 guineas, bt [William] Seguier for the Governors of the British Institution, by whom presented to the National Gallery 1830.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2019Thomas Gainsborough at the PushkinThe Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts2 December 2019 - 9 February 2020
Bibliography
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1806W.H. Pyne, Microcosm or, a Picturesque Delineation of the Arts, Agriculture and Manufactures of Great Britain, London 1806
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1812Lincoln, Lincolnshire Archives Office, BRA 305: Inventory of the Household Furniture at Grimsthorpe Castle in the County of Lincoln the Property of the Right Honourable Lord Gwydir… 1st January 1812, 1812
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1832W.Y. Ottley, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, London 1832
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1915W.T. Whitley, Thomas Gainsborough, London 1915
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1939M. Woodall, Gainsborough's Landscape Drawings, London 1939
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1946Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
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1970J.T. Hayes, The Drawings of Thomas Gainsborough, II: Catalogue Raisonné, London 1970
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1973M. Clarke, 'Gainsborough and Loutherbourg at York', City of York Art Gallery Quarterly, XXXVI, 1973, pp. 931-5
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1982J.T. Hayes, The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough: A Critical Text and Catalogue Raisonné, Ithaca 1982
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1985M. Rosenthal, 'The Landscape Moralised in Mid Eighteenth Century Britain', Australian Journal of Art, IV, 1985, pp. 36-49
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1995P. Spencer-Longhurst and J.M. Brooke, Thomas Gainsborough: The Harvest Wagon (exh. cat. Birmingham CMuseum and Art Gallery, 28 April - 9 July 1995; Art Gallery of Ontario, 29 July - 9 October 1995), Birmingham 1995
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1998J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
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2000Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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