Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Private Scottish collection, purchased from an Edinburgh gallery circa 1975

This is a full-scale autograph version of his breakthrough painting The Joyless Winter Day, which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1883 (no. 764), whereupon that work was purchased for the Chantrey Bequest for £250; in 1906 it was presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest to the Tate Gallery (then known as The National Gallery, British Art). The current oil is more broadly painted than the exhibited composition in the Tate, and thus may be considered as either the artist's full-scale preparatory study for the final version or as an autograph replica of the exhibited work, possibly to be retained by the artist.

A number of other related sketches, studies and copies of this composition by Farquharson are recorded. There are two notable studies, one of which is an oil on canvas (64.8 x 90.2 cm), inscribed and dated 'Dec 6th / [18]82', which was formerly in the collection of Lt-Col H Wright when it was lent to the Farquharson exhibition (Joseph Farquharson of Finzean, ed Francina Irwin, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Fine Art Society London, Fine Art Society Edinburgh, p. 19, no. 17, not ill.). Another unsigned study for the painting, which is in watercolour and gouache (50 x 85.5 cm), was in the collection of Steven L Henderson when it was exhibited in Aberdeen, London and Edinburgh in 1985 (p. 19, no. 18, not ill.).

Among the known extant versions, copies and replicas after Farquharson's original composition is an oil on canvas (61 x 106.7 cm), signed on the recto 'J Farquharson, R.A.' and inscribed on the stretcher A Joyless Winter Day by J Farquharson R.A., which was sold at Christie's, Edinburgh, 22 November 1990, lot 579. An even smaller replica (51 x 91.5 cm), signed 'J. Farquharson', was sold at Sotheby's, Glasgow, 14 February 1995, lot 126. Another unsigned replica (61 x 91 cm) was sold at Sotheby's, Gleneagles, 1 September 2004, lot 825.

The Joyless Winter Day was a key painting in Farquharson's career as it was the first major Scottish snowscene he exhibited at the Royal Academy. These wintry landscapes are the cornerstone of the artist's reputation as a painter as well as the source of his considerable commercial success, as many of these compositions were reproduced, engraved and sold through the leading printsellers and photographic companies such as Frost & Reed Ltd of Bristol and London and also by the Berlin Photographic Co of London. Farquharson exhibited similar snowbound landscapes at the Royal Academy continuously from 1894 until 1925 with only one year's break in 1914. In later life he described himself as a commercial artist (he was nicknamed 'Frozen Mutton Farquharson'), who was willing to repeat successful compositions with few changes or as reduced replicas.

Farquharson mostly painted in a mobile studio at Finzean, the estate he inherited in Aberdeenshire. In order to depict sheep in his compositions the painter commissioned plaster models from a local sculptor, William Grant of Monymusk (b 1832). The shepherd in this composition is known to have been modelled by a member of the Duncan family, who were tenants of the Farquharsons (Archdeacon W M Sinclair DD, 'Joseph Farquharson, A.R.A.', The Art Annual, 1912, pp. 1-32.)

The fluid painterliness and natural effects of Farquharson's painting were developed and matured during the four winters (1880-1884) he spent studying in Carolus-Duran's studio in Paris, where he was a contemporary of John Singer Sargent, who in turn became a firm friend and admirer of the Scottish artist.

Sickert compared Farquharson's paintings favourably to those of Courbet, preferring the Scot's work: 'Farquharson's extraordinary virtuosity has been developed by experience but it arises certainly because he is thinking of telling his story... The subject is the very raison d'etre of the picture. Bloomsbury will perhaps tell you that it is wrong... Fortunately the writ of Bloomsbury does not run to the North of Scotland' (W R Sickert, A Free House, London 1947, p. 204, first published in an article 'Snow Piece and Palette Knife', The Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1926).