Farm-labourers conversing in a field

George Barret, along with Richard Wilson and Thomas Gainsborough, were three of the leading landscape painters of the period who were also founder members of the Royal Academy in London in 1768. Barret had crossed to England from Ireland in 1762 and quickly began to command high prices for his work. He was a successful painter of estate views and romantic pastoral scenes. The present picture seems to fall into the latter category, although there is a strategically-placed house on top of the hill, near the centre. Relatively late in his career Barret began to use bodycolour, a medium which is particularly suited to the depiction of high summer.