Landscape with Cottage and Stream

ca. 1750 · Watercolour · 29.9 × 36.2 cm

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Landscape with Cottage and Stream” now? Collection: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Not on view at present. Checked September 25, 2026.

Victoria and Albert Museum

London, United Kingdom

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 17 days ago
In this state since: Sep 25, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

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About the work

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) spent the early part of his artistic career in Suffolk, England. This is one of the very few watercolour drawings to survive from this period. Gainsborough sometimes made his drawings and watercolours for publication as engraved prints. He also made them for sale or to present to patrons and collectors. He must have made this watercolour for sale. It is highly finished and around the picture you can still see the double lines he drew as a framing border.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Details

Accession number: DYCE.676

What it shows

Cottage Tree Streams Bridge Suffolk

In the catalog

Drawings & watercolors Watercolour Rococo 18th century British School

Sources

Victoria and Albert Museum
Image: Victoria and Albert Museum — © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

In the life of Thomas Gainsborough

The whole life

1748
His father dies; back to Sudbury
Gainsborough's father, John, dies in 1748. With no new commissions coming in London, the painter returns to Sudbury, to the house of his childhood.
c. 1749
Landscapes do not pay: a turn to portraiture
Gainsborough has always thought of himself as a landscape painter, but landscapes bring no income: in the England of the day they count as a “low genre”. Around 1749 he unites portrait and landscape in one composition for the first time, in “Mr and Mrs Andrews”.
31 January 1750
Daughter born: Mary Gainsborough Fischer
1751
Daughter born: Margaret Gainsborough
1752
The move to Ipswich
In 1752 Gainsborough, his wife and their two daughters, Mary (“Molly”) and Margaret (“Peggy”), move to Ipswich. Portrait commissions increase, but his clients are mostly local merchants and squires, and he has to borrow against his wife's annuity of £200, which the Duke of Beaufort had settled on her.
c. 1752 – 1759
The Ipswich Music Club
In Ipswich Gainsborough becomes a member of the Music Club, where he meets fellow music lovers and professional musicians; later he will paint portraits of some of them, and a group portrait of the club's members.