Lot 89
£11,250
Scottish Paintings & Sculpture
Auction: Evening Sale: 16 June 2022 | From 19:00
Signed and dated 1872, oil on canvas
Though born in Carlisle in 1822, the self-taught Bough is predominantly associated with Scotland, having based much of his career there developing his precise, skilful technique under the influence of masters of the Scottish landscape genre, Alexander Fraser and Horatio McCulloch. Bough was also heavily impressed by the art of J. M. W. Turner, and one feels this shared interest in light and atmospherics keenly in the wonderful example offered here for sale, ‘Winton House, East Lothian – A Frosty Morning’.
A winter scene is rather unusual for Bough, whose name perhaps more readily conjures images of bustling seaports at dusk, or tree dappled country lanes in strong summer sunlight. Yet winter appears to suit his meticulous paintbrush immensely. Each blade of frost-bitten grass, the texture of the silvered bark of the fallen logs, and the frozen rutted path is exquisitely delineated. His depiction of the scene walks an extraordinarily adept line between romance and realism, and while it remains a gentle rather than overt representation of the hardships of rural life in the depths of winter, it cannot be accused of being a saccharine interpretation. The sunset filtering through the trees instead reminds us that the temperature will shortly plunge, our figures making haste to collect their last sticks of firewood before they lose the light. The scene also recalls his famous views of Cadzow Forest, in which his wonderful facility for the portrayal of trees and woodland foliage made for some of the best regarded works of his oeuvre.
Works by Bough on this large scale are rarely seen and Lyon & Turnbull are delighted to present such a masterful example by this much-admired artist to the market.