Set in the valley below Frederick McCubbin’s home, Fontainebleau, this scene looks north-west from Mount Macedon with the late rays of sun filtering through the trees onto grazing cattle.

One of the key founders of the Heidelberg school of Australian impressionism, McCubbin moved to Mount Macedon in 1900. The property, surrounding bushland and the clear, country skies provided him with an inspiring array of subject matter.  Increasingly interested in capturing the light in his landscapes and producing soft, atmospheric skies, McCubbin wrote to his friend Tom Roberts in 1906, ‘We have all Turner’s skys [sic] up here, divine. A storm the other day. Awe inspiring and tremendous. I must paint it.’