A Story of Mutton and Mustard

When The West With Evening Glows

This picture (whose title was seemingly written by Yoda) was painted by Joseph Farquharson around 1900. Farquharson painted many scenes of cattle and sheep in snow, and he frequently depicted them in the evening or dawn light. He was even nicknamed ‘Frozen Mutton Farquharson’.

This particular painting was bought by an art collector whose fortune derived from mustard.
Yes, Sir Jeremiah Colman was a Mustard Magnate.
It was said that Colman’s profits came not from the mustard that people consumed, but from the mustard they left behind on the side of the plate.

Sir Jeremiah Colman

So, Frozen Mutton and Mustard came together, and Colman was able to hang the prized Farquharson next to his Alma-Tadema and his Burne Jones and the other Victorian masterpieces at his house, Gatton Park, Surrey, a couple of miles from where I am writing these words.

Colman was able to carry on gazing at his art collection, when he wasn’t in the greenhouse hybidizing his orchids, until 1934, when a fire destroyed most of Gatton Park.

Colman died 10 years later at the grand old age of 82, and his family sold the painting which had somehow escaped the fire, at Sotheby’s for the lowly sum of 50 guineas (52 pounds).

Roll on sixty two years to last week, when the painting comes back to market at Sotheby’s with the hammer coming down at a staggering Ã‚£232,000.

The Forest Path (Just to show he didn’t only paint snow scenes.)

Some factoids about Joseph Farquharson:

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

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

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

This entry was written by michael, posted on 3 September, 2006 at 1:13 am, filed under Art, Painting. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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By Articles and Texticles / Golden Hour at Gatton Park on 5 February, 2007 at 3:09 am

[...] Gatton Park, which used to be the home of Jeremiah Colman, the Mustard Magnate, who I wrote about here. Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was [...]