About this work
David Davies studied at the National Gallery School from 1887 to 1890. In 1890 he travelled to Europe, studying in Paris and painting at St Ives, Cornwall, a popular artists’ colony. Returning to Melbourne in 1893, Davies settled at Templestowe and during the following four years completed numerous soft twilight landscapes. This portrait is a rare figurative subject in Davies’s work of the period. His distinct technique of thick paint, applied in broad, irregular strokes, evocatively captures the rough features of a local figure while simultaneously offering a glimpse of the bush landscape in the background.