The shortening Winter's Day is near a close

FARQUHARSON John (1846-1935)

1903

The shortening Winter's Day is near a close
Oil on canvas

82 x 119.25 cms

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool

This and pictures like it are often seen on Christmas cards. Joseph Farquharson is the most celebrated British painter of winter scenes. His depictions of sheep in snow were painted at Finzean, Aberdeenshire, and he commissioned a mobile studio/bothy on his estate so he could work virtually en plein air in the most inhospitable conditions. Farquharson's considerable commercial success was based on the snow scenes he exhibited almost annually at the Royal Academy 1894-1925, earning him the nickname 'Frozen Mutton Farquharson', and celebrated printsellers Frost and Reed assured him a steady income by selling deluxe editions of his works. This subject is one of his most celebrated, and the primary version (now in the Lady Lever Art Gallery) was shown at the RA in 1903. Farquharson was known to create several versions of his best works, either to sell as replicas or to retain as aides memoires. Here he contrasts the hard, smooth finish of the snow with the soft, shaggy texture of the sheep — a contrast all the sharper because both are white. The setting sun, shining at the spectator, only makes the total effect all the more an ingenious test of the artist’s skill in portraying subtleties of reflected colour and tone on his white surfaces. Farquharson’s titles sound like quotations, but in fact are his own inventions. The art dealer Thomas Agnew purchased the painting from Farquharson on 25 March 1903 and sold it to Lever five days later for £850.