19th century English forest landscape with figures by a fire side, mid afternoon

19th century English forest landscape with figures by a fireside, mid-afternoon.

A very well painted classic Victorian English landscape with figures. Wonderful observation by the painter of a scene with subtle light and amazing detail throughout the piece. Look at the man seated on the left smoking a clay pipe, you can even see the smoke coming up from it.

The quality of the trees is very similar to the work of Frederick William Hulme and William Shayer, both very fine English landscape and genre painters.

Bennett seems to have been a landscape painter working in the middle of the 19th-century and he may well have been influenced by one of these painters' art.

This is the quality of the finest Victorian landscape painters and would be a great addition to any collection.

It is an oil on canvas and has recently been cleaned and re-framed.

The piece is signed and inscribed on the reverse.

• Height 53.34 cm / 21 "
• Width 43.18 cm / 17 "