Farmyard Scene

Location

Country: UK
City: England
Place: Wiston House, Foreign Office, Wilton Park

Beneath the large, thatched farm buildings which dominate this watercolour is an idealised scene of domestic tranquillity. A farmer feeds some chickens, watched by three young children by his side, his wife and another child in the door of the farmhouse and a group of docile cows. In the distance, another man leads a group of pigs away to be fed.

Robert Hills was based in London. He trained under the painter and drawing master John Alexander Gresse. Hills exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution, both in London. He also became a founder member of the Old Water Colour Society and was the Society’s first Secretary, and later Treasurer. He occasionally collaborated on works, painting animals for fellow artists George Barret the Younger, George Fennell Robson and William Henry Pyne. In 1815, Hills visited Waterloo a month after the famous battle, before travelling through Holland and Flanders. He also made several sketching tours through Britain. He painted a number of snow scenes, as well as numerous idealised farm scenes dominated by thatched agricultural buildings.

Places

Subjects

animal husbandry, chicken farmer, farmer/farm labourer, wheel, wagon, genre, cow, donkey, pig, chicken, boy, baby, man, girl, 19th century costume, smock, top hat, house, barn, farm, thatched roof

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), watercolour (as artists materials), watercolour (as object name)

Artist

Robert Hills (1769 - 1844)

Title

Farmyard Scene

Date

1821

Medium

Watercolour on paper

Dimensions

height: 48.50 cm, width: 65.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Gilbert Davis, July 1964

Inscription

bl: R(?) MILLS 1821

GAC number

1777