19th Century Oil Painting of Yorkshire Flither Pickers by Robert Farren

19th Century oil painting of Yorkshire flither pickers painted by Robert B Farren (1832-1912). This is a a skilfully executed and coloured oil painting by Robert Farren in the social realist style, created towards the end of the Victorian period. The composition is particularly strong, in homage to the three young women who are picking rock limpets as fresh fishing bait for their long-line commercial fishermen husbands. These women lived a particularly tough existence and travelled far by foot, often scaling down rocky cliffs, to fill baskets with next day’s live limpets (commonly known as flithers) for use as hook bait by their fishermen husbands at sea. They were physically robust individuals, originating from the filey area of the yorkshire coast.