This fluid, late landscape drawing was made by Thomas Gainsborough towards the end of his career. Gainsborough had spent a lifetime refining his mark making, culminating in a remarkable suite of graphically bold, almost abstract images. In this unusually grand and beautifully preserved example, Gainsborough captures a complex composition of trees, bank and distant hills, seated shepherd and sheep with remarkable economy. What makes this sheet particularly remarkable is its early history, first recorded in the collection of John Jeffreys Pratt, 1st Marquess Camden, it is clear Gainsborough did not consider the composition unfinished or insufficiently resolved.

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