Watercolour on paper
23.5 x 36.5 cm
Signed, dated and located 'Brighton 1890'
The light of a full moon falls across the sea before Brighton, in the hills above a shepherd attends to his flock, as a women tends the ground. In this charming scene, Grace captures the purity and quiet spirituality of working the land, a harking back to bygone eras, whilst also lamenting the dreaminess of long summer nights.
Grace specialised in landscape views of the South Downs, where he lived near the setting of this piece. He studied at the Royal Academy Schools, where he won the Turner Gold Medal and began exhibiting his work in 1865. A well-known artist of his time, Grace exhibited widely across various galleries and institutions, authored the book A Course of Landscape Painting in 1881, and was a close friend of James McNeill Whistler.
