Object Type
Oil paintings with sentimental scenes of children in the countryside became popular with collectors such as John Sheepshanks and the Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend, as well as with the Victorian public in general.

People
John Linnell (1792-1882) was the son of a printseller and framemaker who became a prolific artist and printmaker. He exhibited many works at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the Old Watercolour Society. He was associated with other famous artists of his day, including William Henry Hunt, William Mulready, Dr Thomas Munro and later, William Blake. His views of landscape and of children are much more idiosyncratic than the average Victorian painter and reflect a more intense and romantic view of nature.

Subjects Depicted
One of the most consistently attractive subjects for paintings and prints during the reign of Queen Victoria was that of children, usually at play, in the idyllic setting of the countryside. These sentimental scenes were in part catering for nostalgia felt by many who had spent their childhood in the countryside, but had been forced to leave it. As the century progressed, the majority of the population began to move to towns and cities filled with raw new buildings, the streets polluted with coal smoke and without wild flowers. Linnell's painting depicts an even more distant image for modern viewers, as flower-rich meadows have become increasingly rare in Britain and modern herbicides ensure that there are no weeds (wildflowers) in commercial cereal growing.