The present work is numbered by the artist as Opus 253, which would suggest an approximate date of 1948; it was first exhibited the following year. Writing a few years later, Armfield described the particular appeal of tempera, noting that ‘only in this apparently most material and restricted medium could I learn to express in this age, those fundamental things which could not at the present time find acceptance in a direct or ostensible way.’ In another publication, Armfield wrote, ‘Tempera because of the exigencies of material is specially suitable for smallish pictures, gay and rich in colour…the peculiarities of the medium itself render it most suitable for the presentation of flowers, fruit, and the small beasts naturally associated with them: for sky, pebbles, and generally, the smaller details of nature...’