The drawing is part of an album of works by various Bristol School artists, including Samuel Jackson, James Baker Pyne and William James Muller*. Rippingille's unfinished pen and ink sketch dates to around 1828.

The scene captures one of the Bristol School artists' renowned outings. A group of artists have gathered under trees in the local area of Leigh Woods, which lies on the Somerset side of the Avon Gorge and was a popular destination for their regular sketching excursions. The Rev. John Eagles, who was one of the amateur members of the group, described Leigh Woods in The Sketcher:

Those beautiful woods opposite Clifton, separated from it by the muddy Avon; and, as the epithet implies, a somewhat unseemly river, dividing, like another Styx, the Styx atra, the cares and turmoils of a busy and commercial world from the regions of Elysium. Beautiful as these woods are when seen from the opposite hill, those who only see them thus have but little conception of their beauty. It is the very best artist's ground, not on a very extensive scale, and of a character unique; I at least have never seen the character elsewhere. Some years ago you might have passed days in them, and not heard the step of human foot; and many have I passed in them ?from sunny morn, till dewy eve', alone, and with one companion, and sometimes with a happy fraternity of the stainer's company, choice daubers and paper spoilers (The Sketcher, 1856, p.100).

In the drawing some of the fashionably dressed men are indeed sketching, but others are reading or admiring their peers' works. They have brought a guitar, a picnic basket and bottles of wine with the clear intention of enjoying themselves and being sociable. The image perfectly symbolises the period of unique collective creativity witnessed by the city of Bristol during the early 19th century and the Romantic self-perception of the amateurs and professional artists who formed the Bristol School as 'a happy fraternity'. It also emphasises the importance the artists placed on the study from nature out of doors.

*K3078/1 to K3078/47, catalogued as Drawing Party Sketches.

[From: 'Absolutely Bizarre! Strange Tales from the Bristol School of Artists (1800-1840)', catalogue of an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Bordeaux, June 10 to October 17, 2021.]