Sir George and Lady Strickland in the Grounds of Boynton Hall

The painting portrays Sir George Strickland with his wife, on their return from honeymoon. He leans elegantly against a tree-stump entwined with honeysuckle while she sits on a fallen tree-trunk, formally dressed in pink and green with a gauze apron. While the asymmetrical placing of the figures on the canvas owes much to Gainsborough's early conversation pieces, Devis' sense of refinement and polish produces a less sophisticated yet more artificial note which clearly echoes the style and manners of his sitters and their provincial society. For the first time in his work the landscape has become equal in importance to the figures, with its suitably-idealised parkland, winding water and distant hills. Boynton Hall is near Bridlington, Yorkshire. Purchased after a successful public appeal by the museum.