Thompson was born in the Cumbrian town and first worked as a sign painter before a local patron, William, Earl of Lonsdale, encouraged him to train at the Royal Academy Schools of Art in London. He quickly excelled and became a successful portrait painter with a studio in Hanover Square. But Cumbria was in ThompsonÂ’s blood and in 1841 he returned to live in the area with his wife and child, earning his living by painting local scenes and exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy. The Druids Cutting Down the Mistletoe shows figures at work in a wooded clearing in the Eden Valley, the magnificent Bronze Age stone circle of Long Meg and Her Daughters clearly visible in the distance. According to ThompsonÂ’s biographer, Llewellyn Jewitt, the painting was commissioned by Colonel Samuel Lacy, owner of the monument and surrounding land. The painting now joins other works by Thompson in the Penrith and Eden Museum, which is just five miles from the scene it shows, and provides an evocative example of how prehistoric sites were admired and represented by Victorian artists.

Provenance

Sold at Sotheby’s, 1978 as the property of ‘J Gunther Esq’; acquired by the husband of the current vendor in 1978. An Art Loss Register search has been carried out.