Lot 122: William Edward Millner , 1849-1895 returning from the fields oil on canvas

signed with monogram l.r. oil on canvas

measurements note 66 by 48 cm.; 26 by 19 in.

Sotheby's, London, 29 May 1968, lot 95 (attributed to G. W. Mote);
Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, where bought by Sir David Scott in March 1969

William Edward Millner, best known for his genre and animal paintings, particularly of horses, lived and worked all his life in Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. His father, also christened William (1818-1870), was a local painter and teacher. Millner exhibited some of his more rustic works at the Royal Academy between 1869 and 1896 such as Labourers, Unyoking, and Ploughing, Lincolnshire. The Gainsborough Old Hall Museum contains a number of his paintings and A Wayside Gossip, signed and dated 1873, is at the Tate. Returning From the Fields is a particularly charming example of Millner's work in which a rustic female field-worker returns from her labours in the barley fields with her arms filled with harvested sheaves and a large bundle balanced on her head.