Noon in the Hayfield, by Sir George Clausen, RA leads Bonhams 19th Century European, Victorian and British Impressionist Art Sale in London on Wednesday 27 September. It is estimated at £500,000-800,00.

The painting was completed in 1897-8 but Clausen (1852-1944) had started work on the canvas seven years earlier and put it aside. The subject – a girl resting after a morning's hay making – reflected the artist's long preoccupation with the rural way of life and the threat posed to tradition by mechanisation.

Bonhams Director of 19th Century Paintings, Charles O'Brien said, "Clausen's long gestation of the resting haymaker produced one of his most rigorously taut and deeply pondered compositions. Rest, reverie and the sunlit glow of the field and wild flowers combine to produce one of the most satisfying visions of the English countryside at the end of the nineteenth century.

Other highlights of the sale include:
Viejo pescador en una barca by Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923) – a moving portrait of an old fisherman estimated at £150,000-200,000.
Desnudo by Ramón Casas (1866-1932). One of a series of nudes executed by the Spanish artist around 1910. Estimated at £100,000-150,000.
Il terrazzo by Angelo Morbelli (1853-1919). Painted in 1915, it is one of a series of works that Divisionist master Morbelli produced in the latter stages of his career, using the motifs of the abandoned table, the telegram and the terrace. Estimated at £80,000-100,000 and one of three works by the artist in the sale.
Scarborough Harbour by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893). A typically atmospheric painting by the British master of moonlight. Estimated at £70,000-100,000