The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of August 10, 2022

The Golden Hour

1865

Samuel Palmer

(British, 1805-1881)

England, 19th century

Watercolor and gouache with graphite and scraping

Sheet: 25.6 x 35.4 cm (10 1/16 x 13 15/16 in.)

The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2009.3

Catalogue raisonné: Lister 646

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Around the time this watercolor was made, Samuel Palmer began to focus primarily on naturalistic landscapes that he hoped would be commercially successful in order to contend with the practical responsibilities of married life and family.

Description

Samuel Palmer developed a personal and emotionally charged style of landscape painting that celebrated nature as the product of divine creation. This watercolor of a spectacularly colorful sunset over the hills of Surrey was painted by Palmer toward the end of his life. An autumn sky heavy with rows of cumulus clouds shimmers in a pattern of pink and amethyst, as slivers of golden light emanate from the setting sun. The idyllic landscape is an elegy not only to a passing day, but to the brevity of life itself.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, in brown watercolor, at lower left: S. Palmer; inscribed, in graphite, on verso: Never let drawinsg on London Board be thinned by removing paper from the back. / This drawing would be unchanged after 3 centuries if the frame were in / a folding ["folding" crossed out] case with a door -- unnecessary exposure to light avoided. See Missals in B. Museum / SP

Provenance
by 1879-after 1882
George Gurney
(sale, Christie's, London, March 17, 1883, no. 182) 1
1962
Private Collection, England
(sale, Sotheby's, London, November 14, 1962, no. 41) 2
1962-1963
The Fine Art Society, London
1963-1987
Dr. Mark Fitch
after 1987-before 2009
(Leger Galleries, Ltd., London)
?-2009
Private Collection, England
2009
(Lowell Libson, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
2009-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

1 As The Glorious Sunset.
2 As The Church by the Mill.
Citations
Wilton, Andrew. The Fitch Collection. Exh. Cat. London: Leger Galleries, 1988. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 54
Palmer, Alfred Herbert. Samuel Palmer: A Memoir. London: Fine Art Society, 1882 Mentioned: pp. i, 35, no. 83; Reproduced: facing p. 34 hdl.handle.net
Palmer, Alfred Herbert. The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher. London: Eric & Joan Stevens, 1972. Mentioned: p. 414
Sellars, James. Samuel Palmer. London: Academy Editions, 1974. Reproduced: p. 133
Lister, Raymond. Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Samuel Palmer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Mentioned: p. 203, no. 646
Samuel Palmer: An Exhibition of Palmer's Works with a Leger Provenance to Celebrate a Century of Art Dealing. Exh. Cat. London: Leger Galleries, 1992. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 29
Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. Mentioned: p. 254; Reproduced: p. 255
"Recent Acquisitions (2005-11) at the Cleveland Museum of Art." Burlington Magazine 1312, no. 154 (July 2012): 525-32. Reproduced: p. 530
Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: 114-15, 147, no. 38; Reproduced: p. 10 (detail), 115
Cleveland Museum of Art. The CMA Companion: A Guide to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2014. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 163
Exhibition history

British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2009.3