# A Sunlit Path through a Wood

- By: Thomas Gainsborough (English, 1727-1788)
- Date: 1750/59
- Medium: Graphite, with brush and gray wash, on cream laid paper, laid down on cream wove paper, edge mounted onto grayish-cream wove paper
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: 15.8 × 19.1 cm (6 1/4 × 7 9/16 in.)
- Culture: England
- Credit line: Regenstein Endowment Fund
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/205851)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/23fc18f5-437f-2942-cb1d-d14128a2bcc2/full/843,/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This work comes from the body of landscape sketches that Gainsborough made for his own pleasure, sitting by his wife in the evening. Although they were originally not meant to be sold, these fresh and vigorous drawings—hailed by a friend as “effusions of genius”— comprise more than three-quarters of the artist’s output as a draftsman and are now the most coveted of his works on paper.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0