An attractive 19th-century oil painting depicting a view from Mølledam near Copenhagen across to the church at Lyngby.

The artist, Carsten Henrichsen (1824-1897), has placed us before a wooden stile that leads on to a dusty quaint track where a mother and child are heading home. The use of the stile seems to bring us closer to the scene - as if we could just hop over it and sit by the lake.

But the real accomplishment here is Henrichsen’s sublime treatment of the light as it falls across the lake and illuminates the front of a cottage. He’s rendered it so well - paying particular attention to the surface of the water.

Henrichsen trained at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and received the Neuhausen Award in 1855. He often painted scenes along the Danish coastline and many include a woman and child walking home.

The painting is monogrammed in the lower left and housed within a 19th-century gilded frame that’s probably the original.