Figures resting on a bank above a river at sunset

We are grateful to Raymond Lister for suggesting a date of circa 1859 and indicating that the drawing will be listed in any future edition of his Catalogue Raisonn of the Works of Samuel Palmer as no. 565a. Lister relates the present drawing to a larger, fuller watercolour entitled Eventide - A shepherd boy on a hill top, the sun setting over the sea beyond (see Sotheby's London, 14 April 1994, lot 520), dated by Lister to circa 1858.