This is a replica of another painting by Webb now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which is signed and dated 1864. In a game of chess between a village squire and a schoolmaster, the squire appears to have won the contest. After studying at the Amsterdam and Antwerp Academies, Charles Webb settled in Dusseldorf, where he became known as a painter of genre subjects, particularly from English life and history.
[1] See ‘New Pictures in the National Gallery’, in The Argus, Melbourne, Thursday 15 September 1870, p. 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5831890