Lionel Percy Smythe was born in London in 1839. However, while he was still a boy, he spent long periods of time in France. Childhood holidays were spent at Wimereux in Normandy. As an adult, Smythe and his wife Alice Gunyon (1847-1916) made frequent visits to France and from 1879 onwards the family lived almost entirely in Normandy. By 1881 Smythe's family had moved to the Château d’Honvault at Wimille, a peaceful village between Wimereux and Boulogne, which would become his principal home and a frequent subject of his paintings for the rest of his life. It provided the artist with the sea, pastoral views and the simple life he loved. In 1879 he exhibited at the Royal Academy a work called ‘Kindred Spirits’. This depicts a child on a s...