Lee’s sharp-focus technique and bright colour shows his awareness of the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. The rough textures of the children’s clothing, the basketwork, the feathers of the chicken and the donkey’s fur are all accurately recorded, but the build-up of detail has a curiously flat, claustrophobic effect. The work of this Liverpool painter is rare and very few works by him are known. Of the thirteen pictures he is recorded as having exhibited during his lifetime, only six are known today.
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