Joseph Farquharson R.A. 1846-1935

London, Royal Academy, 1908, no. 317

Archdeacon William MacDonald Sinclair, D.D., The Art of Joseph Farquharson, A.R.A., special Christmas edition of Art Annual, 1913, repr. pp. 7, 30

In his review of Farquharson's work Archdeacon Sinclair singled out Through the Calm and Frosty Air as the artist's most important picture of 1908 in the chapter entitled 'Some Favourite Pictures'. Sinclair noted that 'Mr Farquharson has never forgotten that special genre which has brought him so much pleasure and distinction' (ibid Sinclair, p. 28) refering to his preoccupation with scenes of shepherds in the highland snow. It was this subject in the artist's work and the stories of him painting at his easle set up in a mobile studio amid blizzards with herds of sheep tethered to the ground before him, that led to his nickname 'Frozen Mutton Farquharson'. The wintry landscape with its deep drifts of snow and meandering flocks of sheep amid the rosy hues of dawning or gloaming light, are the signature elements of Farquharson’s greatest works and here they are rendered with great sophistication and technical virtuosity. Although Farquharson sometimes deviated from his depictions of sheep in the snow, it was these images around which visitors to the Royal Academy exhibitions crowded.

Joseph Farquharson (no relative of the painter David Farquharson) was born in Edinburgh in 1836, the younger son of Francis a doctor in the city and laird of the estate of Finzean. Joseph was educated in Edinburgh and permitted by his father to paint only on Saturdays using his father's paint box. At the age of 12 Francis bought his son his first paints of his own and only a year later the young artist exhibited his first painting at the Royal Scottish Academy. The scottish animal painter Peter Graham became his tutor and taught him for over twelve years and the influence of Graham's wild landscapes and intelligent depiction of animals within it, was deep and lasting upon Farquharson. Farquharson also studied at the Board of Manufacture School in Edinburgh and at in the Life School at the Royal Scottish Academy.

In 1873 Farquharson travelled to Paris and like many artists of his generation he undertook a period of study in the atelier of a French academician, in his case the great Carolus-Duran. Although Farquharson made several trips to Egypt through the mid 1880s and 1890s and painted scenes of Arabic life, his great success of 1883 The Joyless Winter Day set a precident for many of his later paintings and he became well known for his powerful and exquisite depictions of sheep in wintery highland settings. Farquharson exhibited at least one painting of sheep virtually every year at the Royal Academy in London and his total number of exhibits at the Academy amounted to over 200. He was not made a full member of the Royal Academy until 1915 and it was with the success and panache of pictures such as the present lot with which he found great fame.

In later life Farquharson became more and more bound to his home at Finzean in Aberdeenshire, and his responsibilities as laird, which he inherited after the death of his older brother Robert Farquharson MP in 1918. He increasingly painted still lifes and botanical studies in his garden rather than the more dramatic subjects of animals with which he had made his name. A patriotic Scotsman, his home was said to be carpeted throughout in tartan, a carpet much trodden by the numerous parties which took place there. When he died in 1935 aged 89 it was thought by many that he was the oldest artist alive as his career had been so long and his fame so wide reaching.

An etching by William Hole of Farquharson's Through the Calm and Frosty Air was published by Frost and Reed shortly after the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy. The etching was sold as half of a pair with To Winter Quarters (sold in these rooms, 31 August 1994, lot 826). Although To Winter Quarters had been painted two years before Through the Calm and Frosty Air, the similar size of the pictures and the corresponding compositions of snow covered pathways through trees, suggest that the paintings may have been devised as a pair. In each of the pictures the spectator views a hardy shepherd and his flock making their way through the snow; in the the present picture the group approaches the viewer frontally, whilst the second (the earlier painting) depicts a later incident as the shepherd has passed the spectator and continues on his journey.

In 1908 Farquharson also exhibited at the Royal Academy a smaller  landscape with sheep in the snow The Sun Peeped O'er Yon Southland Hills (sold in these rooms, 30 August 2000, lot 1239). His other varied exhibits of that year were a melancholic lakeside noturne inhabited by a solitary heron with the title The Deep Purple of the Twilight and a dramatic but not wholly successful picture of a herd of cattle braving a coastal path lashed by stormy seas, The Atlantic Surge Pours in Among the Stormy Hebrides. The range of pictures exhibited in 1908 proved Farquharson's ability to turn his brush to subjects other than sheep in the snow, but Through the Calm and Frosty Air demonstated that with this subject he excelled above all others.