Audio description:
Cornish Fisherfolk by Walter Langley
On loan from Waverley Borough Council 

This is a large oil painting on canvas by Walter Langley called Cornish Fisherfolk.  It was painted in 1908 and is almost a metre and half tall by a metre wide, which is about 4 ? foot tall by 3 foot wide.  It shows a daytime scene in a Cornish fishing village; a small group of people are gathered at the entrance to a passageway between two simple cottages with slate roofs and whitewashed walls.  The ground around the buildings is cobbled.

In the foreground, on the left of the painting, there is an elderly fisherwoman walking and carrying a cowel (a traditional fisherwomanÕs basket) on her right shoulder.  She is dressed in working clothes: a long dark-coloured skirt or dress, over which she wears a long, off-white, patched apron and a light brown woollen shawl with a fringed edge.  On her head is a dark bonnet which looks a bit worn out and has been mended, on her feet are dark boots.  Her basket seems empty apart from a piece of brown cloth which hangs over the rim.

In the foreground on the right hand side of the painting there are some slate-topped steps.  At the bottom of these is a fisherman, facing away from us and sitting on a small barrel which appears to have an oilskin jacket or cloth draped over it.  There is another barrel on the ground just behind him.  He wears working clothes: a light blue fishermanÕs smock with a patch on the back, dark trousers and working boots.  He has a souÕwester on his head and is smoking a pipe.  

The man is looking towards a woman who is sitting with a young girl on her lap; they are in the centre of the painting.  The woman, dressed in a light pink blouse, a dark red skirt with an off-white apron and black boots, is possibly the mother of the girl.  She looks down at the child fondly and holds her securely with both hands.  The girl is wearing a dark blue dress with a white pinafore on top and has ankle boots on her feet.  Her hair is light blonde and her face has a sad, serious expression.  There is an impression that she might be ill.

The woman and child are sitting at the bottom of another set of steps that lead up to a brown cottage door, which is at the end of the passageway between the two cottages.  The upper part of the door is open and a woman is leaning on the lower part, looking out towards the others.  On the wall to the right of the door is a small birdcage attached to the wall.

On the right hand side of the painting, towards the top of the cottage wall, there is a small window, with two green window boxes containing red flowering plants.  A net or muslin panel hangs across the lower part of the window; the bottom edge of a blind can be seen at the top of the window.

In the centre at the top of the painting, above the grey slate roof that rises up over the brown door, there is a very high skyline which shows a blue sky and white clouds above a green hill.

Behind the seated woman and child, the artist has painted a green patch on the white cottage wall, possibly suggesting mould or damp and giving an indication of the poor living conditions.

The overall feeling in the painting is worry and concern for the young child.  Everyone in the painting seems to be looking towards her.   The artist may be trying to depict the problems faced by the people living in the simple cottages.

END OF AUDIO DESCRIPTION