The moody sky sets the atmosphere for this watercolour of the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Knighton-Hammond would have painted this work in the mid to late 1920s when he would have been on a visit home from the Continent. The colliding brushstrokes in the rapid notation of the clouds creates drama. One feels the sun is beginning to break through. The foliage of the trees is rich in colour and form. The artist achieves picture depth through successive planes – foreground grass, The Serpentine, the trees and building on the far side of the water and the extensive sky give a gentle rhythmic division between the natural elements. This leisure scene which would have been painted at lightning speed and is populated with elegant strolling figures out enjoying the park which gives scale and spontaneity to the composition. Knighton-Hammond’s work is delightfully free and sketchy, but so evidently well thought out and the artist’s sure hand enables him to indicate form, colour and transparency with a sweep of his brush.