Henry William Banks Davis, R.A. 1833-1914

Royal Academy, 1883, no. 279

Although Davis began his career as a painter of Pre-Raphaelite inspired pictures in the 1850s and 1860s, he found greatest fame with his large landscapes inhabited by sheep and cattle which sold for considerable sums during his lifetime. He exhibited his large paintings widely and even showed a small number of sculptures. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1873 and a full Member in 1877 and two of his pictures were bought under the terms of the Chantrey Bequest in 1880 and 1899. His close attention to detail and high level of observation of his subjects often brought is work close in quality to that of Richard Ansdell with whose work he was often favourably compared. His landscapes were usually set in Northern France or in Wales and like the present example in the highlands of Scotland.

The critic for the Art Journal described Gathering the Flock, Loch Maree as 'A path of moor-side, along which the mountain flock are slowly wending homewards. The foreground is brown with bracken, the sky beside the purple hills is deep blue.' (Art Journal, 1883, p. 218)