The Passing Cloud is an interesting example of three established artists and friends working together on one canvas. The bulk of the work was completed by the landscapist Thomas Creswick, who would have requested that his Royal Academy colleagues, William Powell Frith and Richard Ansdell, paint the figures and animals respectively. When exhibited at the RA in 1854, the picture was reviewed by the Art Journal as follows: 'The most important object in this composition is an old wooden windmill, situated on a knoll in the nearest site. A road passes the mill, and it is yet wet with a recent or yet falling shower of rain; this description is given with impressive force and perspicuity. Below the eminence on the other side flows a river, which escapes the eye in the distance, and looking into the field of view, a beautifully diversified country lies spread before us. ... The sky, with its drifting clouds and play of light, and the flitting gleams cast upon the ground, at once penetrates the mind with its impressive truth.'