ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN CHEERE, CIRCA 1750

Related figures of a shepherd and shepherdess were supplied by the sculptor Edward Hurst for Charlecote Park, Warwickshire in 1718 (illustrated in J.P.S. Davis, Antique Garden Ornament, Woodbridge, 1991, p. 59, plate 1:25). Similar rustic figures of a hoe-bearing shepherd and his fruit-gathering companion were also executed in the mid-18th century by the Hyde Park sculptor John Cheere (d.1787). A pair of these figures, acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1896 is now at Kew Gardens, London. Another painted pair were formerly at Tyningham, Scotland; a fourth pair was in the possession of Mallett at Bourdon House (see G. Jekyll, Garden Ornament, Woodbridge, 1994, p. 123 and J.P.S. Davis, ibid, Woodbridge, 1991, p. 65, color plate 18).