A Romantic Landscape with the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba

The artist's contemporaries would have described this painting as a 'poetic landscape' and it is a characteristic style of the Bristol School. The Old Testament story shown is the Queen of Sheba arriving in Jerusalem with a large entourage and lavish gifts for King Solomon. She can just be seen being carried on a throne through the arch in the distance but, curiously, the king himself is nowhere to be seen. The ghost-like appearance of the figures is due to the thin paint becoming more transparent with age.