The Piping Shepherd

The painting shows a romanticised view of rural childhood. At this date some British shepherd boys still wore traditional smocks, but they were of a greyish-brown colour known as drab, and would not have had matching hats. The boys made their pipes from whatever materials were to hand in the pastures, such as the hollow stems of reeds. The green smock and the Baroque recorder in this painting owe more to the Aesthetic Movement, which was prominent at the time and which emphasised beauty, especially in historical form.