The Bellman, 1879

The Bellman 1879 by Samuel Palmer (1805-1881). Etching.

This 1926 impression of the original etching in state 7 of 7, we see a solitary man carrying a bell along a path leading through a village, his back towards the viewer. He passes a thatched lighted cottage on the left in front of which a couple are seated beneath a vine clad pergola. On the right, oxen lie in their enclosure beside a thatched open barn. The village consists of a church and a cluster of ancient low thatched buildings with lit windows and smoke rising from their tall chimneys. A flowering sweet chestnut tree stands behind the cottage on the left. The village is surrounded by hills which recall Devon and the Italian Apennines. The setting sun casts its fading light over the scene. The village resembles Shoreham in Kent.

This is Palmer’s eleventh etching which he developed over several months achieving a rich effect. It illustrates lines from Milton’s poem Il Penseroso: Or the bellman’s drowsy charm, to bless the door from nightly harm. In this section of the poem Milton is envisaging the activities signalling the coming of night. Palmer was obsessed with this part of the poem and in a letter describing the scene, Palmer wrote: Here we enter seclusion without desolateness; where light enough remains to show the village sheltered in its wooded nest.

Samuel Palmer is considered to be one of Britain’s most original artists, and a key figure in the Romantic movement.