Pencerrig
- Artist: Thomas Jones
- Date: 1772
- Medium: Oil paint on paper
- Dimensions: support: 318 x 222 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This oil sketch “Pencerrig” was painted in late summer 1772 by Thomas Jones, a Welsh landscape painter who admired his teacher Richard Wilson and sought to emulate the classical style.
Jones worked on paper rather than canvas—an uncommon choice that gives the piece a light, almost translucent quality. He began this series of sketches during trips back to his family estate at Pencerrig in Powys. The scene shows the modest house framed by a gently rolling hill, trees leaning across the field, and a small pool reflecting the clouds above.
The composition balances architecture, farmland and water. A few hills rise beyond the house, while bright summer light washes over the woodland. It’s a snapshot of a quiet Welsh landscape at that time of year—late summer, when the sky holds scattered clouds and the air is still warm.
Jones later travelled to Naples, where he produced further sketches in Italy, but it was the Pencerrig estate that inspired his most celebrated early work. This sketch captures both the everyday rural life and a painterly ambition to render scenes with atmospheric depth.
The piece exemplifies his early output before he became known for writing Memoirs later in life. It remains one of the finest examples of 18th‑century oil on paper, revealing Jones’s careful study of light, colour and detail as he approached classical landscape painting.
See it in person
Pencerrig is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
