Adams lived at Ewhust in the Surrey Hills, in a house in the middle of a corn field, which had been painted by Vicat Cole. Like Cole, Adams painted in the valleys of the Mole, the Waverley and the Thames rivers. This painting is typical of his sun-kissed idyllic landscapes, and when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887 it attracted notice, not all of it entirely favourable: ‘... clever, but somewhat French in treatment’ opined the Illustrated London News (the term ‘French’- meaning impressionistic, direct from nature, untutored and un-British - was not necessarily a compliment in the UK). The Building News said it was ‘deftly painted ... the foreground of thistles is introduced with marvellous realistic power’, and the London Echo said ‘Few Landscapes are more conscientious, and therefore of great merit, than Mr. J. Clayton Adams’s (696) “Evening Reflection,” his finest contribution. Indeed he will have to paint marvellously well to beat it.’ The long shadows tell us that it is evening, and there is a feeling of a long, hot day‘s hard work coming to a close.