James Desvarreux, Oxen and Sheep in a Sunlit Clearing, Signed Oil on Canvas, Period Gilt Frame

The light is what strikes first. Full sun on the track, and every animal drags a mauve shadow across the grass behind it.

Oil on canvas, 21 x 25 inches (53 x 64 cm), 30 x 34 inches (76 x 86 cm) framed. Signed Desvarreux lower right. Late nineteenth century, in a period giltwood frame.

An ox team comes forward on a diagonal, four animals under a single head yoke, the driver seated on the shafts of an empty two wheeled cart in a straw hat. A shepherdess in white stands off in the field with her staff. The ground in front of her is broken by heather in rose, lilac and white, and this is where the paint is thickest, built up in raised touches that take the light from the side. Behind, a hamlet with whitewashed walls sits among the trees, and to the left the land drops into a bluish valley that carries the eye back several miles.

Desvarreux was American by birth and French by working life, and the subject here is his own ground. He returned to working oxen and to grazing flocks for fifty years, and the handling shows it. The team is drawn from knowledge and the sheep are placed in three touches each.

The frame is a period exhibition moulding, six registers deep. A rope twist runs the outer edge, then a broad flat frieze, a band of carved acanthus rising to projecting fleurons at the corners, a rank of close set palmettes, water leaf and a fine inner fillet. Gold leaf over red bole.

The canvas has not been relined and sits on its pine stretcher, the paint layer stable throughout. The frame shows its age. Both upper corners have lost ornament down to the gesso, the top edge carries a knock, and the gilding is crazed across the flat frieze. The lower corners with their acanthus and fleurons are sound.