Artist’s label verso with title and address at St. Ives, Cornwall.
Exhibited; Royal Society of Artists, Birmingham, 1923.
Original Cole Brothers frame.

Like many of his Newlyn companions, Fortescue recorded the everyday life of the villagers in paintings such as Mending Nets and Fisher Girl. The present work is in the same vein and allows us a glimpse into the life of a fisherman’s wife as she goes about her daily chores, washing clothes in a large tub. A black cat feeds on a plate of fish, its white bib and paws and the tip of its tail indicated by deft painterly touches.