A landscape and genre painter, Collins was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1814. The present lot is characteristic of his later work in its looser handling and less meticulous finish, exemplified in the thinner application of paint in the lower extremities of the landscape. He sketched from nature only to produce idealized landscape settings for his narrative and genre subjects. During the 1820s he took up residences in Hampstead and Hendon, and the scene here most likely dates from this period depicting two young anglers on the shores of the river Brent.