A fabulous original hand-painted litho of an early scene among the Canadian islands of the St. Lawrence River.

This print shows how a simple black and white print, with shades of grey to black could be transformed into a colour print that people would want to hang on walls.

The close-ups show how just about anyone with a shaky enough hand could be shanghaied into wielding a brush.

The colour could be gobbed on; no need to worry about the green of the trees overlapping onto the sky, or the blue paint of the clothes flowing over onto the water and the tent.

The intent was to give viewers a feeling they were looking at a colour picture, when in fact most of it was black and white.

A fabulous early Canadian scenery plate made by Podmore and Walker.

The general layout of the scene shows how Currier and Ives prints of the time were used to make the transfer.

The layout of the islands, the position of the canoes and the tent and figures, the main tree, clearly show the source of the "artistic inspiration" for the Podmore Walker factory artists.

But everything has been changed enough to avoid any copyright infringement problems.