This painting by the Cornish artist Harold Harvey depicts a woman and child enjoying a spring day in a coastal orchard, looking out towards the sea. The young girl clutches a handful of blossom behind her back while her companion absent-mindedly gathers petals on the grass. The composition is similar to others painted by Harvey in the early-1910s, such as Apples (1912) in the Royal Cornwall Museum, Holiday (c. 1912) in the National Museum Cardiff, and Pioneer of Aerial Navigation (1913) in a private collection – scenes bathed in warm sunlight which depict figures savouring country life. The palette of Springtime in the orchard includes a lush green, against which the white of the figures’ clothing and the pale pinks of the apple blossom are thrown into bright relief.

Bibliography:
Tom Cross, The Shining Sands: Artists in Newlyn and St Ives, 1880-1930 (Tiverton: West Country Books, 1994)
Kenneth McConkey, Harold Harvey: Painter of Cornwall (Bristol: Sansom & Company, 2001)