Not currently on display at the V&A

Landscape with Haystack

Oil Painting
1800-1831 (painted)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

The naturalistic quality of this painting reflects Nasmyth’s method of making studies from nature which he then worked up into oils in his studio. It also exemplifies his penchant for painting scenes of picturesque decay with overgrown vegetation and his absorption of 17th-century, Dutch landscape painting, particularly work by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-82) and Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709).


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleLandscape with Haystack
Materials and techniques
Oil on canvas
Brief description
Oil on canvas, 'Landscape with Haystack', Peter (called Patrick) Nasmyth, ca. 1800-1831
Physical description
Two haystacks, side-by-side, with two men in white shirts gathering in the hay; a third man below, helping to harvest the hay which sits in bales to his right. A dead tree to the left, in front of which is a broken fence, and a group of trees to the right with full foliage. Above, the sun breaks through, top, right, the otherwise stormy, violet-blue sky, and casts shadows on the haystacks.
Dimensions
  • Approx. height: 19.1cm
  • Approx. width: 24.8cm
  • Height: 33cm (Frame dimensions)
  • Width: 38cm (Frame dimensions)
Dimensions taken from Summary catalogue of British Paintings, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973
Style
Credit line
Bequeathed by John M. Parsons
Object history
Bequeathed by John M. Parsons, 1870
John Meeson Parsons (1798-1870), art collector, was born in Newport, Shropshire. He later settled in London, and became a member of the stock exchange. His interest in railways led to his election as an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839, and he was director or chairman of two railway companies between 1843 and 1848. Much of his time however was spent collecting pictures and works of art. In his will he offered his collection of mostly German and Dutch schools to the National Gallery (which selected only three works) and to the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, later the Victoria and Albert Museum. The South Kensington Museum acquired ninety-two oil paintings and forty-seven watercolours. A number of engravings were also left to the British Museum.
Historical context
The naturalistic quality of this painting reflects Patrick Nasmyth’s method by which he made continual studies from nature before working them up into oils in his studio. He had a reputation for being a good meteorologist and his skies are always meticulously painted, as here. James Nasmyth records his brother’s trouble in rendering these effects when he painted, ‘the resting cloud, the rain cloud, the driving cloud’, (Peter Johnson and Ernle Money, The Nasmyth Family of Painters, 1977, p.31).

The subject matter of 576-1870 also exemplifies James Nasmyth’s assessment of the picturesque subjects favoured by his brother Patrick, ‘… the decayed pollard trees and old moss-grown orchards, combined with cottages and farm-houses in the most “paintable” state of decay, with tangled hedges and neglected fences, overrun with vegetation clinging to them with all the careless grace of nature’, (Johnson and Money, 1977, p.31). This painting also reflects Nasmyth’s absorption of 17th-century, Dutch landscape painting, particularly work by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-82) and Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709).
Subjects depicted
Summary
The naturalistic quality of this painting reflects Nasmyth’s method of making studies from nature which he then worked up into oils in his studio. It also exemplifies his penchant for painting scenes of picturesque decay with overgrown vegetation and his absorption of 17th-century, Dutch landscape painting, particularly work by Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-82) and Meindert Hobbema (1638-1709).
Collection
Accession number
576-1870

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Record createdJune 13, 2006
Record URL
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