The Close of the Vintage

Jacob Thompson (1806 - 1879)

Penrith and Eden Museum

1872

This watercolour is a well-developed study for a missing oil painting by the Penrith-born artist Jacob Thompson. The scene is in Northern Italy, where a group of villagers are returning home with the season's last load of grapes. It was during a visit to Italy in 1872 that Thompson began making preliminary sketches for The Close of the Vintage. The finished oil painting formed a companion to another oil entitled Rush bearing, a Lake District scene. Both works are similar in conception, grouping, and treatment, each using dramatic, mountainous scenery as a backdrop to the depiction of a local rural custom - in Italy returning from the grape harvest with the last load of fruit and in the Lake District bringing in the last gathering of rushes.

• Medium: watercolour wash & gouache
• Dimensions: 79 x 152 cm
• Art Fund Grant: £1125 ( Total: £4,500)
• ArtFunded in: 1997
• Vendor: Dr D C Hague

Provenance

The vendor was the artist's great, great neice. She inherited the work through the Thompson family.

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