Henry Jamyn Brooks, Sheep Grazing Before a Country House, 1921

Henry Jamyn Brooks (1839-1925) was born in Birmingham and worked as both painter and photographer. He is best known for crowded commemorative pictures, among them the Private View of the Old Masters Exhibition, Royal Academy, 1888, now in the National Portrait Gallery. He spent his last years in north Essex, at Finchingfield and Shalford.

A long, ivy-clad house of Georgian appearance stands across a broad lawn, a flag flying above the central block. Figures gather on the front steps. In the foreground sheep graze and rest beneath bare trees, and rooks wheel under a heavy grey sky. The grass and wild flowers are picked out in small, broken touches.

Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right ‘H. Jamyn Brooks 1921’. In a white-painted moulded frame.