Yale Center for British Art

Creator:

Samuel Palmer, 1805–1881, British, active in Italy (1837–39)

Title:

The Harvest Moon

Date:

ca. 1833

Medium:

Oil on paper, laid on panel

Dimensions:

Support (PTG): 8 3/4 x 10 7/8 inches (22.2 x 27.6 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Signed, lower left: "S. PALMER"

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1977.14.65

Classification:

Paintings

Collection:

Paintings and Sculpture

Subject Terms:

Currently On View:

On view

Curatorial Comment:

Alfred Herbert Palmer, the artist’s son and biographer, who owned “The Harvest Moon”, described it as a typical example “full of Shoreham sentiment” and “not without some of the accompanying peculiarities.” He went on to comment, “There is nothing out of place in the laden wagon with its team of oxen, or in the harvest labourers, for their dress proclaims them labourers of long ago” (Palmer, 1892, pp. 46–47). Christiana Payne has countered the suggestion that the subject may be anachronistic or may be intended to evoke an earlier time, by noting that oxen continued to be used in parts of Britain throughout the nineteenth century and that the smocks worn by the harvesters were standard dress in the period. Although the depiction of harvesting by moonlight seems characteristic of Palmer in the Shoreham period and undoubtedly contributes to the visionary intensity of the scene, Payne also indicates that workers continuing into the night to bring in the harvest had a basis in actual agricultural practice. What does seem fanciful is the crowding of the workers, men and women together, with no open space to set the sheaves—artistic license to emphasize the bounty of the harvest (Payne, 1993, p. 102).

Exhibition History:

Yale University Art Gallery 2015 - 2016 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-07-27 - 2015-01-05)

The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)

Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27)

An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)

Samuel Palmer 1805-1881 Vision and Landscape (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006-03-07 - 2006-05-28)

Samuel Palmer 1805-1881 Vision and Landscape (British Museum, 2005-10-21 - 2006-01-22)

Publications:

John Baskett, Paul Mellon's legacy, a passion for British art : masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, pp. ii & 296, no. 114, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Paul Mellon's Legacy, a passion for British art. [large print labels] , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 3, N5220 M552 +P381 2007, Mellon Shelf (YCBA)

Yale Center for British Art, Selected paintings, drawings & books, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1977, p. 46, N590.2 A82 (YCBA)

Christiana Payne, Toil and plenty, images of the agricultural landscape in England, 1780-1890 , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1993, pp.16, 55, 102-3, no. 20, pl. 13, ND1354.4 P39 1993 (YCBA)

Exhibition Catalogue. 1833. 65th., Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, no. 65, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1833, p. 8, no. 64, N5054 A53 v. 4 (YCBA)

Christie's Sale Catalogue : Highly Important English Pictures c.1600 - c. 1850 : 23 June 1972, Christie's, 1972, p. 28, lot 65, pl. 65, Sales Catalogues (YCBA)

David Ebony, Samuel Palmer's Luminous Garden, Art in America, vol. 94, no. 9, October 2006, pp. 148-49, N1 A43 (LC)+ Oversize (HAAS) Some volumes are also available Online (ORBIS)

Frank Davis, Talking about Sale-Rooms : Samuel Palmer's Poetic Vision, , Country Life, vol. 152, October 26, 1972, pp. 1052-53, fig. 3, S3 C68 + (YCBA)

Geoffrey Grigson, Samuel Palmer, Studio, vol. 128, December 1944, pp. 170-75, J10 +St94 (LSF) Other Campus locations including YCBA hold the journal but lack this volume; only copy appears to be in LSF

Samuel Palmer, Temple Bar, vol. 97, no. 386, January, 1893, p. 85, A88 T24 (SML) Also available Online(Britidsh Periodicals database)

Simon Jenkins, Skip the Secular Rituals of the Turner Prize for a Real Radical, The british Museum's Exhibition of the Painter Samuel Palmer is an Exhilarating Vision of Archaic Beauty , Guardian (Manchester, England), October 31, 2005, See below, Film AN M312 (SML) Also Available Online (Factiva)

Morton D. Paley, The Art of The Ancients, Huntington Library Quarterly, vol. 52, no. 1, Winter, 1989, pp 106, 145, fig. 30, Z783 S25 H45 Also Available Online (JSTOR); Plates and Figures are at the end of the issue

William Vaughan, Samuel Palmer, 1805-1881 : vision and landscape, , British Museum Press, London, 2005, p. 154, no. 81, pl. 81, Nj18 P19 V38 2005 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Alfred Herbert Palmer, The life and letters of Samuel Palmer, painter and etcher, Seeley, London, 1892, pp. 46-47, NJ18 P19 P35 (YCBA) Also have 1972 reprint edition: NJ18 P19 P35 1972 (YCBA)

Geoffrey Grigson, Samuel Palmer, the visionary years. , K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & co., ltd., London, 1947, pp. 93, 110, 186, no. 129, NJ18 P19 G75 (YCBA)

Raymond Lister, A catalogue raisonne of the works of Samuel Palmer, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK; New York, NY, 1988, p. 91, no. 168, NJ18 P19 A12 L57 (YCBA)

Christie's sale catalogue : Catalogue of Modern Pictures and Water Colour Drawings : 20 March 1909, Christie's, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, March 20, 1909, p. 14, Lot 84, Fiche B51, Fiche# 1348 (YCBA)

Raymond Lister, The paintings of Samuel Palmer, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] New York, 1985, no. 25, ND497.P3

Simon Schama, The Yale Centre for British Art, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, Issue no. 3923, May 20, 1977, p. 620, Film S748 (SML) Also avaiable online in TLS Historical Archive (ORBIS)

Lindsay Duguid, The Recollected Works, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, Issue no. 5458, November 8, 2007, p. 17, Available Online : TLS Archive Also Available on microfilm : Film S748 (SML)

Harvest Moon (art reproduction), Apollo, London, England, {front} p. 19, N1 +A54 M57 Oversize (YCBA)

Christiana Payne, ' A mild, a grateful, an unearthly lustre ', Samuel Palmer and the Moon , Burlington Magazine, vol. 154, no. 1310, May 2012, pp. 334, 335, fig. 32, N1 B87 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)

William Vaughan, Samuel Palmer : shadows on the wall, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, 2015, p. 204, fig. 174, NJ18.P19 V37 2015 OVERSIZE (YCBA)

Link:

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:414