Output details

'Extensive fields of our forefathers': some prospect drawings of common fields in Northamptonshire by Peter Tillemans, c. 1719-21

Context:

This article builds on material first uncovered during research carried out as co-investigator of an AHRC ‘Landscape and Environment’ large research grant programme entitled 'Changing landscapes, changing environments: enclosure and culture in Northamptonshire, 1700-1900’ between 2007 and 2010.

Research resides within the processes of:

identifying and disseminating unpublished archival material; the novel assessment of this material as a visual indication of what England’s open and common field landscape looked like before the later Parliamentary Enclosures eradicated this type of landscape and habitat; proposing a new way of understanding the development of the English landscape painting tradition.

Insights:

This article presents the first critical analysis of a little-known set of drawings of the Northamptonshire landscape made by the Flemish artist, Peter Tillemans, between 1719 and 1721. The article highlights the historic importance of these drawings because they collectively contain a number of what are probably the earliest known artistic representations of the unenclosed open field and common landscape in England.

The research was shared in a conference paper (University of Hertfordshire June 2009).