French School, Shepherd Bringing Down the Flock, Oil on Wood Panel, Early 20th Century, Carved Giltwood Frame

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

Oil on wood panel, 11 x 15 inches (28 x 38 cm), 17 x 21 inches (43 x 53 cm) framed, unsigned. French School, early twentieth century, in a carved giltwood frame.

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 over his shoulder, 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 where a fleece or a trunk needs describing. The sheep are suggested and not drawn, which is what carries the movement through the mass of them.

The frame is a later carved giltwood moulding, a deep scotia between bands of leaf and gadroon ornament, gilded over gesso and red bole and worn through on the high points, with losses at the corner joints.

The panel is stable, with no split and no worm. Small scattered losses and darkened specks in the sky and the foreground, the surface matt with no heavy varnish. No signature is visible, though the frame rebate covers a narrow band along the lower edge. An old pencil inscription runs along the upper member of the frame reverse, reported as seen.