John Lewis Shonborn, Signed Orientalist Oasis at Sunset, 19th Century Oil on Canvas in Gilded Frame

The whole canvas is lit from one point on the horizon. The rock walls take the light on their upper faces and go violet in shadow, the water runs pale gold between the boulders, and the palms stand almost black against the sky.

Oil on canvas, 11 x 16 inches (28 x 41 cm), framed 16 x 21 inches (41 x 53 cm). Signed Shonborn lower left and inscribed again in pencil on the reverse. Late nineteenth century, in a gilded wood frame with a linen slip.

The composition is built on a receding gorge. Two rock walls close the sides, a stony riverbed leads the eye back, and a pale range closes the distance at the centre. The palms are grouped in two stands, one on each bank, and the low sun catches only their crowns. The paint is thin and worked wet into wet in the sky, heavier and drier on the rocks, where the brush has been dragged and leaves the weave showing through.

The frame is a nineteenth-century gilt moulding with a rope-twist outer edge and a beaded inner course, over a wide cream linen slip. The gilding is rubbed on the high points of the rope and along the outer edge, showing the warm ground beneath.

The canvas has never been relined. It sits on its original stretcher, the weave open and even across the back, and the painter has signed it a second time in pencil on the lower rail.