A Vision of Shoreham: The Heart of Palmer’s Artistic Journey

The reappearance of this exquisitely painted and highly finished large work on board is an exciting addition to the Palmer's oeuvre, dated to circa 1832-33. It was painted towards the end of his celebrated Shoreham period when Palmer's highly personalised artistic voice that had taken shape at Shoreham from the mid-1820s amongst 'The Ancients' was maturing. It is one of only a small handful of known Shoreham period oils to remain in private hands.

Palmer first visited the village of Shoreham in Kent in 1824 and settled there in 1826 where he remained for nearly ten years. The landscape around Shoreham was the embodiment of Palmer's visions of pastoral life that he had imagined from his reading and it was there that he translated his intensity of vision into drawings or paintings. The valley at Shoreham teamed with an abundance of crops, corn, fruit and hops harvested by hand using age old methods and eschewing the encroachment of modern life. The village scenery was punctuated by the landmarks of rustic life, a small hamlet of primitive cottages, the mediaeval church with its spire, the carpet of fields and populated with a rollcall of village characters, the rhythm of life directed by the seasons. The resulting works which were executed during Palmer's time living at Shoreham are considered his greatest achievements. Palmer, who had first met the visionary artist William Blake (1757-1827) in 1824, was quickly joined by several friends, other devotees of Blake, who formed themselves into a loose group calling themselves 'The Ancients'.

The Gleaning Field: A Masterpiece in Context

During Palmer's earlier years at Shoreham we see the development of his art and his experimental use of medium, following methods he largely evolved himself. However, by the early 1830s Palmer's companions had largely left the valley and Palmer began to attend to the development of his career due in part to his straightened finances, and as a result the manifestations of his period at Shoreham evolved into a more conventional expression of his vision. Palmer had begun to spend more time in London and submitted work to the Royal Academy in 1830 and 1831 which although rejected was indicative of a desire for wider recognition and engagement with the art establishment. In 1832 the Royal Academy accepted seven works which Palmer had sent in from his recently acquired house in Marylebone, including 'Pastoral' scenes and 'A harvest scene', generic titles which have plagued the future identification of these works. In 1833 Palmer exhibited five works, amongst them 'The gleaning field' (here identified as the present work) and a 'Kentish scene'. The following year Palmer exhibited six pictures at the Royal Academy.

The present work, of exhibition scale and highly finished, is the most likely candidate for Palmer's Royal Academy exhibit no. 48 of 1833 'The Gleaning Field', being the only painting by Palmer depicting gleaners as the main subject of the composition. The Gleaning Field, circa 1833 (Tate Gallery, London) is smaller in size with many reworkings in pen and ink and competing motifs of the wagon drawn by oxen and the cottage on the edge of the field.

A Society in Flux: The Socio-Political Backdrop

As a picture intended for exhibition in London at the Royal Academy it is not farfetched to see Palmer's intention for it to convey a message to the London audience. The early 1830s was a period of rural discontent and political unrest and the resulting restlessness was felt in the Shoreham valley. The established way of life in the countryside was in crisis, the boom years of the Napoleonic Wars were over and hardships were felt especially in rural communities through unemployment, the erosion of rights through the continuing enclosure of common grazing land, the passing of the Poor Laws, the imposition of the Church Tithe and increasing mechanisation. There was widespread unrest, most notably marked by the 'Swing' riots of 1830-1 and widespread outbreaks of arson, machine breaking and wage rioting which started in Kent and spread across the whole of southern and eastern England with the military being deployed to support the local law enforcement. The first threshing machine was destroyed on Saturday 28 August 1830. By the third week of October, over one hundred threshing machines had been destroyed in East Kent. The riots spread rapidly through the southern counties of Surrey, Sussex, Middlesex and Hampshire, before spreading north into the Home Counties, the Midlands and East Anglia, moving on as far as Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

Tracing History: The Provenance of a Masterpiece

John Giles (1810-80), the first owner of this picture, was Palmer's cousin and a near contemporary. Giles was one of the 'Ancients' and a stockbroker rather than an artist. He managed Palmer's precarious financial affairs and was close to George Richmond and his family and remained a lifelong friend of both men and a great admirer of Palmer's works. Giles died in 1880 and his collection, comprising some 635 lots of which 185 were paintings, was sold by Christie's in 1881. The present work was purchased by the Fine Art Society for the considerable sum of 135 gns in advance of the exhibition they were to devote to the works of Palmer later that year. The picture appears to have been acquired at that time by either George Richmond or his son-in-law, William Fothergill Robinson. Richmond had presented his daughter Julia and Robinson with Palmer's The White Cloud, circa 1833-4 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; fig. 2) as an anniversary present and Robinson had also been a purchaser at the Giles' sale acquiring The Bright Cloud, circa 1833-4, Manchester City Galleries.

The Shoreham landscape inspired some of the most intensely original pictures of the British Romantic period, works which distilled Palmer's vision and translated it into a representation which contained all the elements of Palmer's pastoral poetry. The present picture marks a particularly important period in the development of Palmer's vision as well as recording a moment of crisis in the political and economical development of late Georgian England. Its appearance at auction represents a rare opportunity to purchase one of only a handful of Shoreham period oils remaining in private hands.

View page turning catalogue

Auction Details

Wednesday 2 July 2025, 2pm BST
Dreweatts, Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE, UK
Bidding is available in person at our salerooms, online, by telephone or you can leave commission (absentee) bids. 

Browse the auction
Sign up to email alerts

Viewing in London (Highlights)
Dreweatts, 16-17 Pall Mall, St James’s, London SW1Y 5LU
Monday 23 - Wednesday 25 June

Viewing in Newbury (Full sale)
Dreweatts, Donnington Priory, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 2JE, UK
Sunday 29 June - Tuesday 1 July 

Further information:
General enquiries: + 44 (0) 1635 553 553 | pictures@dreweatts.com 
Press enquiries: press@dreweatts.com