A Plough and Horses. Verso: Horses Grazing

Robert Bevan sketched and painted rural subjects at many points over the course of his career, beginning with an extended stay in Brittany from 1890 to 1891. He returned there in the early summer of 1893 and stayed through 1894. The recto of the present sheet appears to be a study for a lithograph or painting, given its doubled compositional frames. On the verso, Bevan sketched two horses grazing, while the subtle trace of a third head appears in the upper register of the sheet. The drawing was not necessarily produced during Bevan's tenure in Brittany, although his study of men working in a field is strikingly similar to other drawings he made during that time, namely Ploughing, ca. 1893 (chalk and watercolor, Duncan R. Miller Fine Arts) and Two Horse Plough, ca. 1894 (chalk and watercolor, New Art Gallery Walsall).