Oil on canvas, 14 by 20 ins (35.5 by 51 cm)

Provenance: acquired from the artist?s daughter, Margaret Fisher Prout, A.R.A. by her friend, the artist Anthony Devas,  A.R.A., by descent to the daughter of the artist Kenneth Rowntree 

These charming studies were acquired from Fisher?s studio after his death by the painter Anthony Devas, who was a close friend of Fisher?s artist-daughter Margaret Fisher Prout. They are typical of the free and spirited studies that were probably then worked up into Fisher?s later larger scale paintings. American-born Fisher was one of the most widely admired painters of the Edwardian period, known for his spirited and painterly plein-air depictions of the English countryside. Sir George Clausen said in a memorial tribute to Fisher, that his work always strove to have ?breadth of life? (whether in) ?the sky, the trees, the beasts of the field..? his work was no mere ?record of facts, but as expressing his own sense of their vitality and beauty under the conditions of light and air?. (Memorial Exhibition of works by Mark Fisher, Leicester Galleries, 1924, appreciation by G.Clausen, p.9)