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Dimensions: 39.5 by 58.4 cm., 15 1/2 by 23 in.

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Provenance: THE PROPERTY OF A COMPANY

George Gurney by 1879 until 1891;
John Edward Giles, Palmer's cousin, circa 1891;
Anonymous sale at Christie's, 11th July 1995, lot 50

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Exhibited: Society of Painters in Water Colours, 1873, no.112;
Grosvenor Gallery, Winter Exhibition, 1879, no.1074, lent by George Gurney;
Fine Art Society, 1881, no.90;
Royal Academy, Winter 1891, no.139, lent by George Gurney

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Literature: The Shorter Poems of John Milton with Twelve Illustrations by Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher, 1889, p.xx, repf.facing p.2;
Samuel Palmer: A Vision Recaptured: The Complete Etchings and the Paintings for Milton and for Virgil, 1978, p.65, no.XVI (a) as untraced;
R.Lister, Catalogue Raisonee of the Works of Samuel Palmer, 1988, pp.218-9, no.M8, repr. and listed as untraced since 1891

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Notes: Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn

The present watercolour illustrates these lines from John Milton's Lycidas. Here, a weary ploughman unharnesses his team of oxen under the brilliantly coloured 'opening eye-lids' of the dawn sky. The landscape, with distant cypress trees and mountainous hills is reminiscent of Italy and the hilltop castle is probably based on Palmer's earlier studies of Harlech Castle (see Raymond Lister, Catalogue Raisonee of the Works of Samuel Palmer, nos.267 and 269).

Palmer had been interested in Milton from his early childhood. On her deathbed, his nurse, Mary Ward, had given him a copy of Jacob Tonson's edition of the poet's works. In 1855 and 1856 Palmer exhibited three watercolours illustrating Milton's Comus at the Old Water-colour Society, and, in 1864, stimulated by the interest in his work shown by Leonard Rowe Valpy, Ruskin's solicitor, he turned his attention to illustrating Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. Valpy commissioned eight large watercolours for this series and Palmer intended to make etchings of them, but only completed two by the time of his death.

The present watercolour illustrating Milton's Lycidas was smaller in size than the eight watercolours Palmer had made for Valpy and it seems that is was a by-product of the series. A gouache seen as a study for this work has been dated to circa 1864 (A Vision Recaptured, 1978, p.65, no.XVI (b)). Lycidas was included in the posthumous publication of Palmer's illustration to Milton's Shorter Poems (described as 'The Minor Poems' on the cover) in 1889.

Palmer's thoughts at the time of his later illustrations to Milton are described in a letter to Valpy of June 1864: 'I carried the Minor Poems in my pocket for twenty years, and once went into the country expressly for retirement, while attempting a set of designs for L'Allegro and Il Penseroso...I have often dreamed of a small-sized set of subjects...half from the one and half from the other poem. For I never artistically know "such a sacred and homefelt delight" as when endeavouring in all humility, to realize after a sort the imagery of Milton' (A.H.Palmer, The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher, 1892, p.255). In the event the late illustrations to Milton were among the largest works Palmer ever executed. Lister commented 'Seldom has a painter loved and understood a poet as Palmer loved and understood Milton' (Lister, op.cit., p.8)