Gainsborough and the Legacy of Landscape: Masterpieces from Woburn Abbey

Masterpieces on loan from the Woburn Abbey Collection by artists including Thomas Gainsborough, Claude Lorrain, Aelbert Cuyp, David Teniers the Younger, Sir Edwin Landseer and Richard Parkes Bonington.

Matthew Hirst, Curator at Woburn Abbey explains:

“This exhibition explores the origins of Gainsborough’s landscape art through the examples of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century paintings in the Woburn Abbey collection collected by the Dukes of Bedford in the eighteenth century. It is aided by the inclusion of comparable drawings in Gainsborough’s hand from the collection of Gainsborough’s House. The exhibition also examines the development of English landscape art after Gainsborough as seen in the Woburn Abbey Collection, and in particular, the inspirational role played by the 6th Duke of Bedford in supporting and encouraging all forms of art through his own patronage in the first half of the nineteenth century.”

“The opportunity to explore these subjects and bring together familiar masterpieces with a new lens is made possible by the temporary closure of Woburn Abbey to enable a generational investment in its fabric and infrastructure and the subsequent redisplay of the collections.”

Find out more about visiting Gainsborough’s House on their website.