The Rising Moon

The Rising Moon

Dundee Art Galleries & Museum: 272-1987-254

Artist: Palmer, Samuel

Date: 1857

State: 8/9 or 9/9

Size: 11.7 x 19.1 cm

Medium: Etching

Alternative Title(s) An English Pastoral
Details Etching. Black ink on cream coloured paper. An earlier impression (7/9) was published, along with The Sleeping Shepherd – Early Morning and The Skylark, in the Art Union of London’s Etchings of the Art Union, in 1857. Palmer noted, in a letter to Chichele Giles dated 21 August 1880, that the plate had been destroyed. Raymond Lister (ed.), The Letters of Samuel Palmer, Volume II 1860-1881. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1974, p.1028.
Description Like many of Palmer’s etchings the scene was an amalgamation of Shoreham and Palmer’s visits to Italy and Devon rather than a specific view. The village recalls Shoreham in Kent whilst the cypresses echo those he drew at the Villa d’Este. The hills recall Devonshire tors.In a letter to John Richmond dated January 1869, Palmer refers to the print as his ‘moonlight-flock-etching’ (Raymond Lister (ed.), The Letters of Samuel Palmer, Volume II 1860-1881. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1974, p.792).

Before Whistler and Haden’s experiments with modern aesthetics – particularly their leaving of blank areas on the plate – it was common for etchers to heavily work their plates and Palmer’s is a good illustration of this practice – note how every available space on the print has been covered.
Exhibited Dundee An impression, titled The Rising Moon, was exhibited at the Dundee Fine Art Exhibition, Albert Institute, 1882 (Hall, No. 1717) and marked for sale, from Dowdeswell and Dowdeswells, at £7.7.0. It was likely that Orchar bought this print after the exhibition. Dundee Fine Art Exhibition Catalogue 1882, The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum.

Other etchings by Palmer exhibited at the Dundee Fine Art Exhibitions include one in the 1879 exhibition; Evening (West Gallery, No. 1162 no price), two in the 1881 exhibition; The Bellman (Fourth Gallery, No. 861, £4.10) and Early Morning: Opening the Fold (Fourth Gallery, No. 905, £2.10) and two others in the 1882 exhibition; The Herdsman (Hall, No. 1689, £7.7) and Morning of Life (early proof) (Hall, No. 1707, £7.7).
Catalogue Entry
  1. Raymond Lister, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Samuel Palmer. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988 (E7)
Other Collections
  1. Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology: Print Room, Oxford, UK
  2. British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, London, UK  (2 impressions)
  3. Hunterian Art Gallery Collections, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK (3 impressions)
  4. Victoria and Albert Museum: Print Collection, London, UK (3 impressions)
  5. Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
References
  1. Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists. Paris, Gründ, 2006
  2. Rodney K. Engen, Dictionary of Victorian Engravers, Print Publishers and Their Works. Cambridge, Chadwyck-Heley, 1979
  3. Kenneth M. Guichard, British Etchers 1850-1940. London, Robin Garton Ltd., 1977
  4. Richard Lister, Samuel Palmer and his etchings. London, Faber & Faber, 1969.
  5. Raymond Lister (ed.), The Letters of Samuel Palmer, Volume II 1860-1881. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1974
  6. A.H. Palmer, The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer: Painter and Etcher. London 1892. Reprinted with an introduction by Raymond Lister, London 1972
  7. Christopher Wood, Dictionary of Victorian Painters. Woodbridge, Antique Collectors Club, 1971

 

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