‘Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,/ Miles and miles/ On the solitary pastures where our sheep/ Half-asleep/ Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop/ As they crop …’, wrote the English poet Robert Browning in ‘Love among the ruins’ (1855).

Browning’s poem begins with the description of a shepherd with his flock of sheep walking homewards in the evening in the suffused light, sometimes stopping to crop the grass.

In The sheep pool, Long evoked a similar scene: the end of the day with a setting sun creating a deep shadow in the foreground, a shepherd resting under a tree watching over his flock of sheep grazing in the pastures, and others drinking from the pool. A path winds through the landscape, leading the eye towards the valley, and the scene is closed off by the slopes of the gentle hills. Browning contrasted the bucolic setting of his poem with the ruins of the past, but Long did not follow him there; he simply created a quiet peaceful Arcadian atmosphere. As in Long’s earlier works, Summer 1894 (cat 2) and By tranquil waters 1894 (cat 3), reflections are central to this painting, providing a poetic mirror image. Likewise, the silhouettes of the trees suggest a stage set – an ideal world removed from the everyday.

Long exhibited a painting with a Browning-inspired title, ‘When the quiet end of evening smiles, miles on miles’ in the 1899 ‘Society of Artists exhibition’ (115, price £80). The Sydney Morning Herald said that it had a soft moist atmosphere, like another painting with a pool of water shown by Long in 1899 (19 August 1899). This work could well have been The sheep pool. Long and others often referred to By tranquil waters (cat 3) as ‘The bathers’, and it is easy to think of him talking about 'When the quiet end …' as ‘The sheep pool’. Certainly, when Long exhibited the present painting in 1901 in the ‘Commonwealth exhibition of Australian Art’, Sydney (128, price 75 guineas), he gave it the title ‘The sheep pool’.

‘Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,/ Miles and miles/ On the solitary pastures where our sheep/ Half-asleep/ Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop/ As they crop …’, wrote the English poet Robert Browning in ‘Love among the ruins’ (1855).

Browning’s poem begins with the description of a shepherd with his flock of sheep walking homewards in the evening in the suffused light, sometimes stopping to crop the grass.

In The sheep pool, Long evoked a similar scene: the end of the day with a setting sun creating a deep shadow in the foreground, a shepherd resting under a tree watching over his flock of sheep grazing in the pastures, and others drinking from the pool. A path winds through the landscape, leading the eye towards the valley, and the scene is closed off by the slopes of the gentle hills. Browning contrasted the bucolic setting of his poem with the ruins of the past, but Long did not follow him there; he simply created a quiet peaceful Arcadian atmosphere. As in Long’s earlier works, Summer 1894 (cat 2) and By tranquil waters 1894 (cat 3), reflections are central to this painting, providing a poetic mirror image. Likewise, the silhouettes of the trees suggest a stage set – an ideal world removed from the everyday.

Long exhibited a painting with a Browning-inspired title, ‘When the quiet end of evening smiles, miles on miles’ in the 1899 ‘Society of Artists exhibition’ (115, price £80). The Sydney Morning Herald said that it had a soft moist atmosphere, like another painting with a pool of water shown by Long in 1899 (19 August 1899). This work could well have been The sheep pool. Long and others often referred to By tranquil waters (cat 3) as ‘The bathers’, and it is easy to think of him talking about 'When the quiet end …' as ‘The sheep pool’. Certainly, when Long exhibited the present painting in 1901 in the ‘Commonwealth exhibition of Australian Art’, Sydney (128, price 75 guineas), he gave it the title ‘The sheep pool’.