Audio description: 
A Zandvoort Fisher Girl by Elizabeth Forbes (nee Armstrong)
Penlee House Gallery & Museum

We are standing in front of a painting entitled A Zandvoort Fisher Girl, by the Canadian-born artist Elizabeth Forbes. Painted in 1884, early in Elizabeth ForbesŐs career, it is an oil on canvas, approximately 63 cm high by 53 cm wide in portrait orientation, in a simple wooden frame. It is a striking three-quarter length portrait of a young fisher girl in the coastal village of Zandvoort, about 20 miles west of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  

The figure is positioned in the centre of the canvas as she stands in what looks like an outbuilding, or possibly a large scullery, with a terracotta-tiled floor and a tiled wall behind her, painted in muted blues and greens. There is a small, barred window at the top right of the painting, letting in the light.
Her dark brown hair is styled simply, parted in the centre, and tied back away from her face, probably in a bun. But little wisps of hair have escaped their moorings and are catching the light from the window forming a halo around her head.

She is dressed simply in a dark grey shirt or dress, slightly open at the neck and with a mid-blue canvas apron covering her lower body from the waist down. Her left hand rests on her hip and in between her right hand and hip, she is balancing a large, shallow, pale green ceramic dish, containing several silvery fish. 

Her face is calm, neither smiling nor frowning, her eyes brown, her lips red and her cheeks are flushed pink. But what is most captivating about this picture is the sense of pride, dignity, and poise of this lovely young girl that Elizabeth Forbes has managed to capture and convey. She looks out at us with a direct stare that challenges the viewer Đ it is uncompromising, and perhaps even a little defiant? 

Elizabeth Forbes was accomplished at showing the effects of light in her paintings, and the combination of the subdued, rather more loosely painted background and the light from the window illuminating the figure, points up the freshness of the young girlŐs face. ItŐs a beautiful portrait and one of ElizabthŐs ForbesŐs best known and best-loved works.

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