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The Golden Hour
About the Artwork
Samuel Palmer developed a personal and emotionally charged style of landscape painting that celebrated nature as the product of divine creation. This watercolor of a spectacularly colorful sunset over the hills of Surrey was painted by Palmer toward the end of his life. An autumn sky heavy with rows of cumulus clouds shimmers in a pattern of pink and amethyst, as slivers of golden light emanate from the setting sun. The idyllic landscape is an elegy not only to a passing day, but to the brevity of life itself.
Inscriptions
signed, in brown watercolor, at lower left: S. Palmer; inscribed, in graphite, on verso: Never let drawinsg on London Board be thinned by removing paper from the back. / This drawing would be unchanged after 3 centuries if the frame were in / a folding ["folding" crossed out] case with a door -- unnecessary exposure to light avoided. See Missals in B. Museum / SP
Provenance
by 1879-after 1882: George Gurney (sale, Christie's, London, March 17, 1883, no. 182) 1962: Private Collection, England (sale, Sotheby's, London, November 14, 1962, no. 41) 1962-1963: The Fine Art Society, London 1963-1987: Dr. Mark Fitch after 1987-before 2009: (Leger Galleries, Ltd., London) ?-2009: Private Collection, England 2009: (Lowell Libson, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) 2009-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Samuel Palmer (British, 1805–1881)
- Date
- 1865
- Medium
- watercolor and gouache with graphite and scraping
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 25.6 x 35.4 cm (10 1/16 x 13 15/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- The Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Accession no.
- 2009.3
More by Samuel Palmer in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011133
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