Provenance
Mrs. Thomas Gainsborough; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 10-11 April 1797, 2nd day, no. 69);[1] Sir John Fleming Leicester [1762-1827], Bt., later 1st baron de Tabley [1762-1827], Tabley House, Cheshire. Lady Lindsay;[2] purchased by (Asher Wertheimer, London). Sir Edgar Vincent, Bt., later 1st viscount D'Abernon [1857-1941], Esher and Stoke D'Abernon, Surrey, by 1912; purchased 1929 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);;[3] purchased 26 April 1937 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh; gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] The description in the catalogue is printed in M. G. Speilmann, "A Note on Gainsborough and Gainsborough Dupont," _The Walpole Society_ 5 (1917), 97.
[2] Possibly Jeanne, Countess of Lindsay [d. 1897], of Kilconquhar House, Fife [Scotland], and Queen's Gate, London, who was married to John Trottner, 10th earl of Lindsay.
[3] Duveen Brothers Records, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, box 244, reel 99, folder 21.
Accession Number
1937.1.107
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 113 x 133.4 cm (44 1/2 x 52 1/2 in.) | framed: 146.7 x 167.6 cm (57 3/4 x 66 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Tags
Painting Neoclassical & Romantic (1751–1850) Oil Painting Canvas British
Background & Context
Background Story
Gainsborough painted imaginary landscapes throughout his career, and they represent his deepest artistic conviction — that landscape, not portraiture, was his true calling. Mountain Landscape with Bridge belongs to his late series of romantic landscapes inspired by Dutch 17th-century paintings but entirely transformed by his sensibility. The composition is classical: a bridge spanning a river, mountains in the distance, figures on a path. But the handling is radical — loose, feathery brushwork that breaks up the surface into a shimmer of light and color more reminiscent of Watteau than of any 18th-century landscape painter.
Cultural Impact
These imaginary landscapes were Gainsborough's laboratory. Freed from the requirements of topographic accuracy that governed his commissioned landscape views, he could experiment with composition, light, and brushwork at will. Many of his innovations in portraiture — the feathery handling, the atmospheric backgrounds — were developed first in these landscape experiments. The imaginary landscapes are where Gainsborough's modernity is most apparent.
Why It Matters
Mountain Landscape with Bridge is Gainsborough's private vision made public. It reminds us that the greatest English portraitist of the 18th century considered himself a landscape painter — and that his landscapes were more radical than most of his contemporaries could understand.
