Her Majesty’s Last Recruit

The painting depicts a corner of a room: a man sits on top of a table/bench leaning against the wall. He wears long trousers with braces over a green jumper and hat with tricolour ribbon. Beside him on the table an open newspaper and loaf of bread. Light streams in from the window top right. A chair is seen in the left foreground.

Lucy F. Pearson Hayward is known primarily as a miniature and animal painter. She is recorded as living in Exeter in 1891 and then in 1905 moved to Teignmouth. She is known to have exhibited at the Royal Society of Artists, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, the London Salon and the Royal Hibernian Academy.