Classical landscape with figures and cattle

Along with his friend Samuel Palmer, Francis Oliver Finch was one of the young artists in William Blake’s circle in the 1820s who called themselves the ‘Ancients’. Finch was the least visionary of the group and his preference was for imaginary pastoral landscapes in the tradition of Claude Lorrain. With its foreground of framing trees opening out to a middle ground of water and an enclosing distance, this watercolour is a fine example of Finch’s emulation of the classical pastoral with its evocation of an ideal rural life.