The Grace, from "Illustrated London News"

As a family gathers to eat in a humble room, a grandfather blesses the food next to his wife, as a younger woman holds a baby in her lap, and two children sit quietly in the foregound. Thomas's wood engraving reproduces a painting by Frederick Goodall, the second son of the skilled line engraver Edward Goodall. As a child, Frederick and his siblings had been encouraged to pursue art by John Ruskin, Clarkson Stanfield, David Roberts, and J.M.W. Turner. At sixteen, Goodall showed four commissioned watercolors at the Royal Academy, then won a silver medal at the Society of Arts for an oil painting. This early success allowed visits to Brittany and Ireland, and led him to depict rustic village subjects influenced by David Wilkie. In 1852, Goodall was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. An extended trip to Egypt in 1858 set his subsequent career on a different course.