Old woman picking herbs near a river bank.

Drawing, pencil and brown wash, 22,1 x 31,7 cm, laid down on thick paper, signed in ink at lower right corner "D. COX" (damp stain at upper right corner, sm. damage at right edge, some brown spots).

Under passe-partout.

David Cox (1783-1859) was an English landscape painter, one of the most important members of the Birmingham School of landscape artists, and an early precursor of Impressionism. He is considered one of the greatest English landscape painters, and a major figure of the Golden Age of English watercolour. The drawing is very comparable to other drawings Cox made of the British countryside, such as "At Betws-y-coed", in the British Museum (1889,0526.10).
Ref. S. Wilcox, Sun, Wind, and Rain: The Art of David Cox. Yale, 2008.