French School, early 20th century
Shepherd Bringing Down the Flock
Oil on wood panel

Unsigned. 11 x 15 inches (28 x 38 cm), the frame 17 x 21 inches (43 x 53 cm). Later carved giltwood frame. Panel stable, no split, small scattered losses.

Two dogs face each other in the grass at the front of the flock, one caught mid stride. Everything else in the panel is moving in one direction, and they are the only things that are not.

The flock spreads in a long band across the middle of the panel under bare trees, and the shepherd comes down the slope at the right with his staff, small and dark against the hill. The paint is thin and fluid across the sky and the far ground, then laid on direct and loaded for a fleece or a trunk. The sheep are suggested rather than drawn, and the movement runs through the whole mass of them.