Oil Painting, 'The White Cow', by Albert Lugardon, Swiss school, mid 19th century

A white cow being led across a meadow by a young girl.

Bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend

Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, listed in the 1868 post-mortem register of the contents of his London house (V&A R/F MA/1/T1181) in the library as an 'Oil on millboard. The white cow. By Albert Lugardon. In frame. Signed. Swiss. Present century'; bequeathed by Rev. Chauncey Hare Townshend, 1868.

Historical significance: Typical of the Realist movement emerged in the 1840s in France is the interest in rural society and the rendering of light, here ta bright sunlight is subtly reflected on the cow's massive body. The subject matter is reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch paintings such as Karel Dujardin's œuvre (c. 1622-1678) but also results from the revived interest in direct observation of nature.
This painting was bequeathed by the Rev. Townshend who owned a large collection of 19th-century landscape and genre paintings. It is not unlikely that Townshend, who resided part of the year in Lausanne, acquired this painting directly from the artist.

Albert Lugardon (1827-1909) was born in Rome. He first trained with his father, the painter Jean-Léonard Lugardon (1801-1884) and later became the student of Ary Scheffer in Paris. He won a prize in Geneva in 1855 and exhibited regularly since then in Geneva and in Switzerland.

This painting is a fine example of Lugardon's animal paintings, a category for which he was most praised by the critics. 19th-century painters favoured the depiction of rural subject matters resulting from the direct observation of nature. This trend emerged in France in the 1840s with the so-called Realist movement but also results from a revived interest in 17th-century Dutch imagery. This type of pictures was particularly popular in the second half of the 19th century.

1544-1869