Watercolour over pen and ink, 30 by 25 cm (11 ¾ by 9 ¾ ins)

The present work relates to the painting Early Morning from 1917 (Southampton City Art Gallery, acc.12/1969), which shows the backs of houses in the Surrey town of Oxted. Ginner had been called-up in World War One, serving first with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and then the Intelligence Corps. Some fine Wartime work resulted from the former of these, amongst them The Blouse Factory, from 1917 (Government Art Collection, acc.6838). His drawing of Oxted, despite its strong compositional similarities to the related painting, differs considerably in execution. Its strong underlying draughtsmanship is characteristic of this earlier phase of the artist’s work, perhaps reflecting Ginner’s training as an architect in Paris in the late 1890s.