The Early Ploughman; The Morning Spread upon the Mountains

Physical description

Rural scene showing a ploughman driving a pair of oxen, with plough, towards the left of the image. Birds are taking flight above a bridge to the left of the scene and a figure holding a pot on their head is standing by a line of trees to the right.

The plate has been re-worked, particularly in the sky and the foreground. A level horizontal cloud runs just below the summit of the distant hill across to the trees. The streak of light marked in one touched example of working proof 4, has been introduced under the central arch of the bridge.

Signed in pencil.

Place of Origin

England, Great Britain (probaly, etched)

Date

ca.1861 - 1867 (etched)

Artist/maker

Samuel Palmer, born 1805 - died 1881 (etcher)

Materials and Techniques

Etching print on paper

Marks and inscriptions

'Samuel Palmer'
'Finished state'

Dimensions

Height: 18 cm plate impression (approx), Width: 25 cm plate impression (approx)

Object history note

This is a proof from re-bitten and re-worked plate.

Descriptive line

'The Early Ploughman' (also known as 'The Morning Spread upon the Mountains'). Rural scene showing a ploughman driving a pair of oxen as the sun rises behind the hillside. Etching by Samuel Palmer, England, ca.1861-1867.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Catalogue of an Exhibition of Drawings, Etchings & Woodcuts by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake October 20 - December 31, 1926. London : Published under the authority of the Board of Education, 1926. Publication No. 178 E.I.D.
NB: This source does not necessarily refer to this specific object.
The full text of the entry is as follows:

'THE ETCHINGS

Ref.: - M.H. = HARDIE, Martin: “The Etched Work of Samuel Palmer,” The Print Collector’s Quarterly, III, 207, 1913.
The measurements are given in inches and millimetres, height followed by width.
E.s. = Etched surface; PL. = Plate.

[ ... ]

196. The Early Ploughman. Known also as “The Morning Spread upon the Mountains.” Working proof 2. (M.H.9.) (Plate XXIX.)
E.s. 5 ¼ x 7 ¾ in. ; 133 x 197 mm.
Pl. 7 x 9 7/8 in. ; 179 x 251 mm.
Before the addition of the rays of light shooting up into the sky. The dark shadows under the arches of the bridge not yet expressed. Various pencil touches in sky.
Inscribed in pencil For retouching sky – Sky high light wiped ; and, on back Probably printed by Gad or Martin.
Lent by Martin Hardie, Esq., R.I., R.E.

197. The Early Ploughman. Working proof 3.
The bridge is now distinct, and the rays of light are partly added. Where some rays in a later state form a Y slanting to the right, only the top of the Y now appears. The third tree from the left in the right-hand group has still a rounded top.
Inscribed in pencil No 2. Thursday, June 8 ; and, on the back 2. Thursday, June 8. More black than Brown.
Lent by A. H. Palmer, Esq.

198. The Early Ploughman. Working proof 4. (Plate XXIX.)
Before publication in Etching and Etchers, but apparently in the same state. The third tree from the left in the right-hand group now has a pointed top. A dark tree has been added, half filling the space in the sky between the two trees on the right.
See Etching and Etchers, Chapter on Samuel Palmer, 1st edition. The plate was used as an illustration to that work (to face p.144), and with reference to it, the author, P. G. Hamerton, remarks: “If the reader will entirely detach his mind from all preconceived notions of what good etching has hitherto been or ought to be, and simply look upon this work as a piece of artistic expression, without reference to the means used, he can scarcely fail to receive the sensation of richness and beauty. The etching affects us as a picture does; it is mellow and full, like work from a flowing brush. . . . In the bridge on the left, where a pure etcher would have given frank lines of structure, the utmost care is taken to avoid them; and even when, as in the black markings of the arches or of the tree trunk which comes across these, there are what appear to be something like lines, these are not true and simple lines, but elaborate imitations of brush-work with the etching needle. All through the foreground we have the same steady resolve, carried out with infinite mastery of resource, to obtain as nearly as possible the results of painting, and you cannot find a pure etched line a quarter of an inch long that dares to stand on its own merit. By a system of laborious retouching and stopping-out, the herbage is everywhere tenderly and artistically suggested, and the etched line as carefully annihilated. The sky is completely successful, for it well renders the first flush of morning on a roof of undulating cloud; but the success has been purchased at a great and evident cost of toil, and many parts of it bear a marked resemblance to the best modern engravings.”
Signed S.Palmer.
Lent by A. H. Palmer, Esq.

199. The Early Ploughman. Proof from re-bitten plate.
The only proof in existence of this state. Private press. – A.H.P.
Lent by A. H. Palmer, Esq.

200. The Early Ploughman. Proof from re-bitten and re-worked plate.
The plate has been re-worked, particularly in the sky and the foreground. A level horizontal cloud runs just below the summit of the distant hill across to the trees. The streak of light marked in one touched example of working proof 4, has been introduced under the central arch of the bridge. (See Appendix.)
Signed in pencil Samuel Palmer. Inscribed Finished state. E.1892-1919.
Presented by Mrs. J. Merrick Head.

201. The Early Ploughman. Final state.
One of 75 impressions, on specially chosen old paper, printed under the supervision of Sir Frank Short, R.A., P.R.E., R.I., Martin Hardie, R.I., R.E. and F. L. Griggs, A.R.A., R.E., before the cancelling of the plate. A small etched triangle has been added in the lower margin on the left, to identify the final printing, and each proof is signed in pencil: “F.S. – M.H. – F.L.G.”
Plate destroyed. E.1461-1926.
Presented by A. H. Palmer, Esq.

[ ... ]

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE ETCHINGS

By A. H. PALMER

Generally, this exhibition shows very clearly how, in Palmer’s work, most careful analysis went hand in hand with most imaginative designing. If, in etching, he had tapped the great resources of his analytical knowledge and draughtsmanship, now and then (as for instance the magnificent and very ancient tree trunks of Lullingstone Park), I am inclined to think that he might have done etched work as much to Ruskin’s satisfaction as the tree-drawing which Ruskin eulogises in Modern Painters.
With the public verdict of seventy-four years (although I have not seen a tenth part of it), I feel content, and more than content. It has been kindly to a very high degree, even when written by those whose sympathies were almost entirely with etching of a totally different school. It has been, so far as I know, unanimous both in the press and privately. Maybe, that some day Mr. Rossetti’s prophecy will be fulfilled – namely, that the realistic side of Palmer’s art “on which he touches the many,” will cause his work to grow in influence.
One of the objects of this exhibition was to demonstrate that the purely realistic and analytical side of that art was, from the very first, closely allied with the purely imaginative – that he continually turned from one to the other – thus vindicating Edgar Allan Poe’s words: “It will be found that the ingenious are always fanciful and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.”
In all Palmer’s art-teaching, or in the examples he made for his pupils’ use, there was not one attempt to inoculate them with those artistic ideals by which, if his name goes down to posterity, he will be known. But there was a ceaseless effort to emphasize the importance of that universally unpopular pair, “Elements and Accuracy.”
Although my father once wrote that the destruction of an etched plate seemed to him like “the murder of a mind,” I have followed the best advice in Europe most generously given at the cost of much time and trouble, and all the plates in my possession have been finally cancelled by one of the usual methods. This is a fate far more merciful than that they should have been ultimately sold and condemned to the lingering death and dishonour which has befallen plates by illustrious hands.
Three eminent artists and etchers have, out of regard for Samuel Palmer’s work and memory, done that memory the honour to attend to the plates’ obsequies. They have done this even to printing some of the final impressions with their own hands. In the whole of my father’s life there was no such incident as this. The devotion of the “Ancients” to each other was as nothing to it. For brevity’s sake I gave to the three artists the name of “The Trio.” When any future collector sees the little equilateral triangle which symbolizes the three etchers (and also their initials F. S., F. L. G. and M.H.,) on the margin of an etching by their fellow craftsman, he will know that of all the kindly things which have been written and done in connection with Samuel Palmer and his work, none approaches theirs.

[…]

ADDITIONAL NOTES.

General Note on the Etchings. – Although some of the best impressions of his etchings were sold or given away by Samuel Palmer, nearly all those which I have contributed to this Exhibition were, for various reasons, among his especial treasures. They also represent many days of intense agony and “grated consciousness” by the side of the inanimate and animate machines which he had to deal with. Of the various states I myself know little. For that knowledge “The Trio” must be consulted. – A.H.P.'
Catalogue of an Exhibition of Drawings, Etchings & Woodcuts by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake October 20 - December 31, 1926. London : Published under the authority of the Board of Education, 1926. Publication No. 178 E.I.D. pp.79-80.
The full text of the entry is as follows:

'THE EARLY PLOUGHMAN

Catalogue, nos. 196-201

The Morning Spread upon the Mountains was listed and sold by Mrs. Noseda of 109, Strand, London, in the ’sixties and under that title; but it afterwards became known as The Early Ploughman. On the 28th of July 1867, P. G. Hamerton wrote to Samuel Palmer from Pré Charmony thus:- “I am now wondering whether you could persuade yourself to be represented in my book by the plate called ‘The Early Ploughman.’ I would have it steeled at my expense and every possible care would be taken of the plate . . . your plate would be returned to you in a state not inferior to its present condition and its value could scarcely, I think, by reduced by the fact of its having been chosen for insertion in my book on the art of Etching. . . . In case you have no objection to lend the plate on the terms mentioned (100 fr:= £4.) please send it to my printer. I should have been glad to offer more – well let us say £5 instead of £4. I know even £5 is a very small sum but the whole success of the book must depend on its not being too dear . . . several artists have lent plates for nothing – not that I mean this as a hint for you, but merely to explain how we have been able to bring out such a volume at such a price.”

The plate was sent, and nothing more was heard of it for more than eight months. It was already well known, and had been well received. Therefore Palmer set about the task of getting git back, and he wrote several times in vain. On the 22nd May 1868, Hamerton wrote:- “I cannot tell you how much I was grieved to learn . . . that you have not yet received your plate. I myself have written most urgently to -- -- and this time I will write him such a letter as he never read in his life and withdraw my custom from him, and the custom of my friends and publishers. I am placed . . . in a most painful position. You had the kindness to lend me a valuable plate for a nominal rent and the least we could have done would be to comply immediately with your wishes.”

In due course our first private press was put up at Furze Hill House. I had my own notions how The Early Ploughman might be printed, in spite of its disgraceful treatment, and I pulled a proof or two which astonished my father, and established a standard which, according to emphatic wish, was adhered to until the plate was re-bitten. It was an absolutely different standard from the old one. Of this Hamerton knew nothing. He wrote desiring that I should print him “one copy to complete a defective copy Etching and Etchers.” Two were sent, and they led to the following comment in the 1876 edition of Etching and Etchers:- “I always greatly admired this plate, but the full beauty of it was unsuspected until Mr. Palmer set up a printing-press in his own house. . . . In November and December 1873 . . . his son kindly took two proofs for me, which for the first time made me fully acquainted with the merits not only of this particular work, but of its author’s method of etching.” Finally the plate was re-bitten. As there are some persons, nowadays, who are interested in Palmer’s etching technique, it may be said that whereas the tone and effect of the proofs of The Early Ploughman plate printed by me at the private press from November 1873 to the date of re-biting, were got by the full resources of special ink, laboriously ground, and of artificial printing, the tone and most of the effect of the “finished state” after the re-biting, were due to that re-biting. The re-biting in fact, was given chiefly because of the difficulty of compensating by retroussage for the result of the maltreatment in France.

I imagine from what I have read, here and there, that personal supervision by my father, proof by proof, is supposed to have followed the advent of the first private press and the conclusion of Goulding’s lessons in 1873. But in no case did he criticise until the proofs were printed; and in very few cases did he even look on during the inking or retroussage. My large second press (started in November 1880) and my printing-room at Newman Street he never saw. He now knew the results of proper printing by a person who was aware of his objectives in etching generally, and each plate in particular; but he did not know much more of the technicalities of printing than when he stood be Gad or Martin, striving in vain to make himself understood in a language which, to them, might just as well have been Hebrew. On the advent of the first press, he had, for the first time, no need of an interpreter. For years I had seen the progress of his “blots,” monochrome designs, and water-colour drawings. I had written down his views on art, and understood in detail the language in which he expressed them to himself and to an extremely limited audience. Constant surveillance of the printing on his part was therefore unnecessary. On the contrary, he wrote to me insisting on “silence and locked doors” for my kind of printing, as he called it.'

Exhibition History

Exhibition of Drawings, Etchings & Woodcuts by Samuel Palmer and other Disciples of William Blake (Victoria and Albert Museum 20/10/1926-31/12/1926)

Production Note

Attribution note: Proof from re-bitten and re-worked plate.

Materials

Paper; Printing ink

Techniques

Etching (printing process)

Subjects depicted

Man; Birds; Trees; Bridge; Agriculture; Rural scenes; Oxen; Plough; Pot; Ploughing

Categories

Prints

Production Type

Proof

Collection code

PDP