The painting depicts a girl and boy - who is playing a tin whistle - lying on the ground near a lake.

[1] The painting is part of a private collection and, between 2017 and 2020, was on loan to the National Gallery of Australia.

[3] McCubbin gifted the painting to a friend, painter and art patron Louis Abrahams.

In 1919, years after Abrahams' death, much of his art collection, including Bush Idyll, was put up for auction in Melbourne.

Bush Idyll was purchased by showbusiness promoter Hugh D. McIntosh, who took the painting to England.