A native of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Good specialised in portraits and genre scenes showing the life of the local fishing community. His models were usually members of his own family; in this instance the ‘fisherman’ is his elder brother Robert, a shopkeeper whose wares ranged from artists’ materials to teas, tobacco and groceries. The painting is thus neither a portrait of Robert Good nor one of an actual fisherman, but a ‘fancy picture’, devoid of any particular social or political message. Such paintings had great appeal for the British public who admired the realistic everyday scenes of the Dutch Old Masters and the work of the pioneering Scottish genre painter, Sir David Wilkie. This scene has been identified with that shown by Good in Newcastle in 1825 at the fourth exhibition of the Northumberland Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts. It created quite a sensation there, with one reviewer remarking on its constant popularity with visitors and another extolling ‘the accuracy and fineness of the disposition of light and shade upon the face and clothing, (especially the boots)’.

Thomas Sword Good HRSA, 1789-1872

Born in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Good served an apprenticeship with a painter-decorator in the town before moving to London in 1810 and setting up in business on his own. He returned to Berwick two years later, after the death of his father. Money from his father's estate allowed him to abandon his trade and concentrate on a career as a portrait and genre painter. Good's subjects were drawn mainly from the Berwickshire fishing community, ranging from the life and work of the coastal fisherfolk and the salmon netters on the Tweed estuary to the exploits of smugglers. In many instances members of his immediate family served as models.
Good was a regular exhibitor, showing work in London, Edinburgh and a number of regional centres in Britain until 1834, when he gave up painting as a profession after marrying a local heiress.