A quaint painting of an English farm girl, Feeding the Chickens, by important Irish artist Walter Frederick Osborne, is expected to attract a lot of interest at the Bonhams July 11 sale of 19th Century Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors in London.

The painting, estimated to sell for between $785,000 and $1.1 million “is arguably one of the outstanding examples of plein-air painting from this exciting period,” said Charles O'Brien, head of Bonhams 19th Century Paintings Department, in a press release.

While Osborne is usually categorized as an impressionist, this particular work is more romantic, displaying sharp detail usually lost in impressionist works and using exquisite skill to vividly capture a natural scene.

“Its atmospheric palette, dappled sunlight and sumptuous textures and tones combine to make it a highly desirable work by a very well respected and admired artist, so we expect there to be considerable interest,” O'Brien said.

Osborne worked on this painting as a young man while in the small English village of North Littleton, in Worcestershire, near Stratford-on-Avon, between 1884 and 1885.

Referring to the artwork in a letter to his father, he wrote that he was “pretty far advanced on a kit-cat of a girl feeding fowl in a sort of farmyard,” according to Bonhams. Osborne included a pencil sketch of the composition with the letter.

The rural theme was popular at the time and widely echoed in works by many of Osborne’s contemporaries, such as Alexander Stanhope Forbes and Nathaniel Hill.

“It is a remarkable example of the dramatic change that Irish painting underwent towards the end of the 19th century, with artists increasingly being influenced by movements in continental Europe,” O'Brien said.

Osborne died from pneumonia at the age of 43.

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