The Early Ploughman

 

Samuel Palmer

  1805 - 1881 (biography)

before 1861, this printed later 

etching 

5 3/16 x 7 13/16" image 

unsigned, as usual 

not stated 

 

Lister E9 (state vi/ix??; Tonneau-Ryckelynck 9 

ivory laid 

v/ix (?) 

P.G. Hamerton 

20996 

SOLD

This impression trimmed inside the platemark, but with ample white space outside the image all around, from one of the editions of P.G. Hamerton's "Etchings and Etchers". The plate was rebitten for subsequent printings. Early states were given the alternative title "The Morning Spread Upon the Mountain." P.G. Hamerton, in 'Etching and Etchers', pages 331-332, states: "The ploughman here, and his team of oxens, are the most perfect examples of Palmer's manner of using line and shade...The man and the animals are softly lighted by the dawn, and they are visible in the dim light with just as much definition as they would have in a good painting, and no more."