Evening Pasture. James Smetham. c. 1865. Oil on canvas. H 19.7 x W 50.8 cm. Credit: Yale Centre for British Art. Accession number: B1973.1.54, in the Paul Mellon Collection. Image kindly released via Art UK as being in the public domain. Caption material added by Jacqueline Banerjee, who also added the comments below. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Susan Casteras talks of "the two figures poised in repose and overlooking a vast, Claudean panorama" here (124), mentioning also Blake's Songs of Innocence. But the artist who really comes to mind is Samuel Palmer, even though, as Casteras notes earlier, Smetham only mentions him occasionally — at least in his "surviving ... documents" (118).
Bibliography
Casteras, Susan. James Smetham: Artist, Author, Pre-Raphaelite Associate. Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1994.
Last modified 14 April 2021