William Joseph Julius Caesar Bond - The Farmyard

Bond was a long-lived Liverpool artist (dying at the age of 93) who became a beloved and picturesque Merseyside institution. Most of his later output has little to do with Pre-Raphaelitism, and he modelled his mature style primarily on Turner, but he began to paint as a protege of John Miller, an early Liverpool collector of Pre-Raphaelite pictures and enthusiastic patron of local artists; his early work, such as this painting, is unmistakeably Pre-Raphaelite in style. Marillier succinctly explains his output at this time, "every square inch of canvas is a separate small picture, and yet there is no loss of breadth or harmony on the whole...[each painting] is a masterpiece of careful and conscientious work" (H.C. Marillier, The Liverpool School of Painters, London, John Murray, 1904, p. 75).