Long painted this homely scene either while visiting Griffith’s farm – a property on the Richmond side of the Hawkesbury River, west of Sydney – or back in his studio, working from sketches.

He depicted a young woman feeding poultry and calves in a clearing in front of a homestead on a crisp winter morning. A chock-and-log fence runs along the perimeter of the clearing, beneath a clump of gnarled fruit trees. Working in the tradition of his teacher Julian Ashton and his naturalistic approach to picture making, Long created a slightly sentimental image of rural domesticity.

The site for this painting is one that a number of other artists depicted. Several Sydney-based artists, including Ashton, Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton, made regular painting excursions to Griffith’s farm and its surroundings during the 1880s and 1890s. It provided them with an easily accessible rural environment, just outside the city limits. Indeed, in this painting, Long paid homage to Conder’s Tea-time 1888 (AGSA), a work with which he would have been familiar as it was then in Streeton’s collection.

Long painted Feeding time in the same year as George W. Lambert produced A bush idyll 1896 (AGNSW), another endearing rural scene of a young girl surrounded by animals. At this time, both Long and Lambert were studying with Ashton, and sharing a studio at 20 Beaumont Chambers, 88 King Street, Sydney. It is possible that their teacher set them a farm subject to paint or, alternatively, they spurred each other on in their choice of subject.

Long was sufficiently enamoured of his image to include the house and trees in the upper vignette of his illustration for D.H. Souter’s article ‘From a painter’s point of view’ in the Australian Magazine (30 March 1899). The painting was first exhibited in 1896 at the ‘Society of Artists Spring exhibition’ (64) and reproduced with a drawing by Lambert after Long's painting.

Long painted this homely scene either while visiting Griffith’s farm – a property on the Richmond side of the Hawkesbury River, west of Sydney – or back in his studio, working from sketches.

He depicted a young woman feeding poultry and calves in a clearing in front of a homestead on a crisp winter morning. A chock-and-log fence runs along the perimeter of the clearing, beneath a clump of gnarled fruit trees. Working in the tradition of his teacher Julian Ashton and his naturalistic approach to picture making, Long created a slightly sentimental image of rural domesticity.

The site for this painting is one that a number of other artists depicted. Several Sydney-based artists, including Ashton, Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton, made regular painting excursions to Griffith’s farm and its surroundings during the 1880s and 1890s. It provided them with an easily accessible rural environment, just outside the city limits. Indeed, in this painting, Long paid homage to Conder’s Tea-time 1888 (AGSA), a work with which he would have been familiar as it was then in Streeton’s collection.

Long painted Feeding time in the same year as George W. Lambert produced A bush idyll 1896 (AGNSW), another endearing rural scene of a young girl surrounded by animals. At this time, both Long and Lambert were studying with Ashton, and sharing a studio at 20 Beaumont Chambers, 88 King Street, Sydney. It is possible that their teacher set them a farm subject to paint or, alternatively, they spurred each other on in their choice of subject.

Long was sufficiently enamoured of his image to include the house and trees in the upper vignette of his illustration for D.H. Souter’s article ‘From a painter’s point of view’ in the Australian Magazine (30 March 1899). The painting was first exhibited in 1896 at the ‘Society of Artists Spring exhibition’ (64) and reproduced with a drawing by Lambert after Long's painting.