Painted when he was twenty-four, the picture shows Cole moving away from the obsessive attention to detail which had characterized the Pre-Raphaelite approach to landscape of artists such as Inchbold and Brett in the earlier 1850s. He prefers to highlight small areas, such as the hollyhocks near the cottage, while avoiding the plethora of detail beloved by the Pre-Raphaelites. His lighting is also more diffuse than theirs, and he differs from them in making use of aeriel perspective to create a sense of spatial regression.

We are grateful to Tim Barringer for his help in preparing this entry.