Joseph Farquharson R.A. 1846-1935

George McCulloch, thence to his widow Mrs Coutts Michie and her husband James Coutts Michie A.R.S.A.;
Colonel M.A.W. Swinfen Broun of Swinfen Hall, Lichfield;
Christie's, London, 10 December 1948, lot 89;
Private collection

London, Royal Academy, 1888, no. 994;
London, Royal Academy, The McCulloch Collection of Modern Art, Winter Exhibition, 1909;
Nottingham, Castle Art Gallery

Archdeacon William MacDonald Sinclair, The Art of Joseph Farquharson, A.R.A., special Christmas number of The Art Annual, 1912, p. 27, illus. p. 8

STRUCTURE This picture is unlined and in excellent original condition with clear colouring throughout and rich texture. The paint surface appears to be stable and there are no signs of retouching. The picture has recently been professionally and sensitively cleaned and revarnished and is ready to hang. UNDER ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT There are no visible retouchings. FRAME This picture is contained in the original exhibition frame.
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'Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shill's I hear the blast
I'm sure it's winter fairly!
Chorus:
Up in the morning 's no for me,
Up in the morning early!
When a' the hills are cover'd wi snaw
I'm sure it's winter fairly.'
Robert Burns, 'Up in the Morning Early', 1788

For this painting Farquharson diverted from his usual subject of sheep in the snow and painted a remarkable study of light and weather, described by Archdeacon Sinclair as; 'a remarkable winter landscape; a hooded woman and three children in shadow struggling up a steep wet road over a heath-clad moor; the shoulders of a man are disappearing the other side of the brow. There is a rift in the clouds, from which light floods the wet road, and casts shadows from the figures.' (Archdeacon William MacDonald Sinclair, The Art of Joseph Farquharson, A.R.A., special Christmas number of The Art Annual, 1912, p. 27) The highland road is scarred with cart-tracks and the marks of horses' hooves and shimmers with rain water gathering in puddles. The mists loom ominously as the weather closes in on the hurrying family, wrapped against the cold and bowed against the insistent wind. The Director of Aberdeen Art Gallery Ian McKenzie Smith described the subject thus; 'Occasionally Farquharson foresook sheep to show human vulnerability in the face of adverse weather conditions.' (Ian McKenzie Smith, Joseph Farquharson of Finzean, exhibition catalogue for Aberdeen Art Gallery, 1985,  p. 27)

The present picture was bought by George McCulloch, one of the most eminent collectors of modern art in the late nineteenth century. Upon his death in 1907 he was granted the posthumous honour of having his extensive collection of pictures exhibited as the winter exhibition at the Royal Academy, which was organised for 1909. George McCulloch was born in Glasgow in 1848 and as a young man he travelled to South America to learn principles of farming which perhaps accounts for the predominance of rustic subject pictures in the collection he accumulated years later. At the age of twenty-two he found himself penniless in South America, having lost all of his money and not wishing to return home and admit failure, he embarked for Australia. By 1883, McCulloch had established himself as the manager of a large sheep farming station near Broken Hill, where a silver-mining enterprise was begun. A syndicate of seven men from the sheep farm, including McCulloch, invested £70 each in a silver-mining business at Broken Hill and in a few years £16,000,000 was raised in shares and McCulloch had become the leading force in the venture. McCulloch was able to invest in other mines and became a very wealthy man and put Broken Hill firmly on the map as the mining centre of Australia. McCulloch was a great lover of art and decorated his house in Australia with prints of the celebrated pictures of the annual exhibitions at the Royal Academy. In 1892 he moved to London and in 1895 when his mansion at 184 Queen's Gate in London was completed he set about finding and buying the original paintings of the prints he had admired. Over the next decade he built up one of the greatest collections of contemporary art containing many masterpieces of the period including George Frederick Watts' Fata Morgana, John William Waterhouse's Ophelia, Stanhope Forbes' Forging the Anchor, Lord Leighton's The Daphnephoria and Sir Edward Burne-Jones' Love Among the Ruins.

Following McCulloch's death, his widow married the Scottish painter James Coutts Michie who had been Farquharson's pupil. Michie had been a close friend of the McCulloch's following his move to London in 1893.

A small study for Cauld Blaws the Wind Frae East to West (12 by 18 in.) was in the collection of pictures by Farquharson owned by Dugald Jaffray (Christie's, 27 November 1996, lot 614). A later small version dated 1890 (9.5 by 15.5 in.) is also known.