Over the Brook; Gone to Ground; Gone to Wood; and Over the Fence

The artist was the eldest son of the landscape painter William Shayer (1787-1879), and the stepbrother of Charles Waller and Henry Thring Shayer. He is known to have worked in his father's studio and by the age of seventeen was also exhibiting at Henry Buchan's Hampshire Picture Gallery. He was later to exhibit at the Royal Academy and British Institute. By 1830 Shayer was listed in the Southampton directories as an animal portrait painter, and in 1836 he moved to London and produced several works for Rudolph Ackermann.