Oil painting, Landscape with Cottage and Milkmaid in the Foreground, by an unknown artist, British school, 18th century

A milkmaid with a pail on her head, depicted in the foreground, approaches a cottage seen through a vista of trees.

Bequeathed by Rev., Alexander Dyce

Bequeathed by Rev. Alexander Dyce in 1869

[Not in Ron Parkinson]
The Reverend Alexander Dyce :
South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks. The Dyce and Forster Collections. With Engravings and Facsimiles. Published for the Committee of Council on Education by Chapman and Hall, Limited, 193, Piccadilly, London. 1880. Chapter I. Biographical Sketch of Mr. Dyce. pp.1-12, including 'Portrait of Mr. Dyce' illustrated opposite p.1.

Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education, South Kensington Museum.A Catalogue of the Paintings, Miniatures, Drawings... Bequeathed by The Reverend Alexander Dyce. London, 1874. A 'Note' on page v comments, 'This catalogue refers to the Art portion of the Collection bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum by the Reverend Alexander Dyce, the well-known Shakespearian scholar, who died May 15, 1869'. The Catalogue. Paintings, Miniatures, &c. by Samuel Redgrave notes of the 'Oil Paintings', 'The strength of Mr. Dyce's valuable bequest to Department of Science and Art does not lie in [this] portion ... which is in its nature of a very miscellaneous character. The collection was made apparently as objects offered themselves, and without any special design.' Dyce's main interest was in literary subjects, and this is reflected in many of the paintings he bequeathed to the V&A.

This painting depicts a remote cottage, glimpsed through a vista of trees, approached by a milkmaid carrying a pail on her head. The Rev. Alexander Dyce bequeathed it to the museum in 1869.

The landscape has remote echoes of the ‘cottage-door scenes’ of the 1770s and 80s by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) who was the first artist to explore the cottage motif in any depth. Gainsborough’s paintings of cottages, often shown with female figures gathered outside their open doors, were pastoral idylls. They were not intended to evoke reality but, rather, dreams of escape to rural retirement and domesticity. However, this picture shows the cottage in a more open clearing than was usual for Gainsborough with the sky and towering trees more of a focus than the cottage. The milkmaid motif is also found in Gainsborough (see Landscape with Milkmaids, Rustic Lover, Herdsman and Cows, Dogs, Sheep and Goats of c.1772-4, Taft Museum, Cincinnati) but, more particularly, in 17th-century Dutch painting, for example, the works of Nicolaes Berchem (1620-83). Again, the artist has not focused on the milkmaid as Gainsborough perhaps would have done. The framing trees seem to be the real focus of the work, and hark back to the tradition of Claude Lorraine’s landscape paintings. The landscape was probably executed towards the end of the 18th century, and looks back to many older landscape painting traditions.

The painting’s cottage theme echoes contemporary pastoral literature which explores the fantasy of rural cottage idylls. In his poem Deserted Village (1770), for example, Oliver Goldsmith reflects on a fading way of life embodied by, “The shelter’d cot [cottage]…” The poet, William Cowper, shares this nostalgia in The Task (1785), in which he muses on the pastoral dream of rural retirement to a cottage which he passed in his rural walks and named ‘the peasant’s nest’.

A rather enigmatic note from a curator on the Departmental file comments, ‘Col. Grant expressed his opinion on 10/5/14 [1914] that this is by De Bast’. It is not known who Col. Grant was, and the only artists called ‘De Bast’ known today are Dominique De Bast (1781-1842) who is a noted marine artist, and Lievin Armand M de Bast (1787-1832), although no illustrations of his work are currently available.

This painting depicts a remote cottage, glimpsed through towering trees, approached by a milkmaid carrying a pail on her head. The Rev. Alexander Dyce bequeathed it to the museum in 1869. The painting has remote echoes of Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘cottage-door scenes’ of the 1780s and 90s who was the first artist to explore the cottage motif in any depth. However, this picture shows the cottage in a more open clearing than was usual for Gainsborough, with the sky and towering trees more of a focus than the cottage. The milkmaid motif is also found in Gainsborough, however, the artist has not focused on the milkmaid as perhaps Gainsborough would have done. The real focus of the painting seems to be the framing trees which hark back to the tradition of Claude Lorraine’s landscape paintings. In so doing this painting, which was probably executed towards the end of the 18th century, looks back to many older landscape painting traditions.

DYCE.57