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The original watercolour for this was commissioned in 1932 by Sir Geoffrey Fry, Private Secretary to Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, at his country home Oare House, near Pewsey, in Wiltshire. The boys in their shorts and caps are picking currants under the supervision of the head gardener. The nets are carefully painted, as too the fig leaf bank, and each of the strawberry leaves in the bed is picked out with precision. But the choice of viewpoint is what is unusual here We look up through the nets above to see spectral trees, the undulating Downs and the skies overhead to make what is, to many people, one of Ravilious’ most exceptional paintings.
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