A.J. Casson’s own later inscription on verso notes this work as painted around 1920 in Toronto’s Don Valley. Now well within the Greater Toronto Area, 100 years ago it was the bucolic, rolling countryside captured here. At this point, Casson would have been in his early 20s, and the young yet undeniably accomplished artist had been painting with members of the Group of Seven since the previous year, when he began his apprenticeship under Group of Seven member Franklin Carmichael at the commercial art firm Rous & Mann Ltd. This beautiful image, complete with its gentle light and the nuanced use of green that would become his trademark, was produced at the outset on one of Canada’s most important and beloved artistic careers.