The Herdsman's Cottage. Sunset by Samuel Palmer, 1805-1881

Samuel Palmer, 1805-1881
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The Herdsman's Cottage. Sunset

Original etching in black ink. 1850. Signed with initials in the plate. From the first issued edition. Etched in 1850 but only a few proofs at that date. First issued by Hamerton for the albums: Etching and Etchers and The Portfolio in 1872-80.
Ref: Lister 3, second state with the initials and as completed.

Excellent impression with plate tone. On pale cream laid hollande-type paper. Excellent condition. Full margins. Sheet: 12 x 8 1/2ins. Plate: 4 3/4 x 4ins (122x100mm).

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In the 1830?s Palmer and his friends had formed group calling themselves ?The Ancients? and devoted to recapturing the spirit of elegiac pastoral ecstasy which they admired in the writings of Virgil and above all found expressed in the visions of William Blake, their mentor. Palmer spent much of his time at that date living in the village of Shoreham in a spirit of rural simplicity. The visionary works which he painted in those years, both in oil and in water-colour, filled with an intensity of light and pastoral emotion are masterpieces of British 19th century art.

In 1850 when he decided to take up etching as a medium it was in many ways because in the intense contrasts of touches of black ink against the white of the paper sheet he rediscovered the same intensity of vision that he wanted in the earlier works. The Herdsman?s Cottage is probably the most widely known of his etchings from this first period of his prints in 1850. The sense of light, of the setting sun seen through the foliage, the atmosphere of rural peace as the herdsman drives home his cattle, recaptures all the ecstasy of his Virgilian vision.