Provenance: the artist's estate

The label on the reverse suggests that this oil sketch was a proposal for a mural. Elizabeth Bulkeley, the artist's daughter, remarks, 'This painting is similar to others in which a scene is framed by a window and seen through the eyes of a child (e.g. the Tate's painting of Adam and Eve). The small girl, who looks much as I did at that time, observes a world of Fairy Tales. All were favourite stories that my father loved to read to me; Beauty and the Beast, the Witch beside her gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel, Jack with the fallen Giant wreathed in the Beanstalk, and the Tale of the Very Fat Man, the Very Tall Thin Man, and the Very Short Man.'