Duterreau after George Morland

The Farmer's Door [&] The Squire's Door

21 x 25.5 inches

Here we have a quintessentially Georgian pair of pastoral scenes contrasting both ends of the social spectrum in a deliciously sentimental way. At the Farmer's Door we see a contented, buxom farmer's wife surrounded by some of her children. She wipes her hands upon a cloth so perhaps she's just been touching the otherwise pristine piglets that gather at her feet. By contrast, at the Squire's Door we see the mistress of the house turned out in her fanciest riding habit. An excited spaniel frolics at her feet, an urchin from the village receives sixpence by way of alms and an attentive groom waits patiently for her to mount. The use of stipple engraving and sepia ink only adds to the romanticism of these images. They achieve additional poignancy when one compares English life at the time with what was occurring across the Channel in Revolutionary France. Here things were far from tranquil; the peasants were revolting and the aristocracy were being beheaded at a rate of knots.