John Ferneley Senior

John Ferneley - Stallion with Groom

1812

This lovely British Victorian oil painting is by noted 19th century landscape artist Thomas Baker of Leamington. It was painted on 18th September 1854 as a special commission. The co...

This lovely British Victorian landscape oil painting is attributed to noted artist Sam Bough. It was painted circa 1855 after Bough had moved to Hamilton Lanarkshire in Scotland to focus on painting landscapes along side fellow artist Alexander Frazer. The composition is several cattle watering in a stream under the boughs of an ancient tree. There is superb impasto, for example on the clouds and this is a charming 19th century oil painting. Provenance. London estate. Condition. Oil on canvas, 29 inches by 16 inches unframed and in good condition. Frame. Housed in an ornate gilt Victorian frame, 36 inches by 23 inches framed and in good condition. Samuel Bough RSA (1822–1878) was an English-born landscape painter who spent much of his career working in Scotland. He was born the third of five children in Abbey Street, Carlisle in northern England, the son of James Bough (1794-1845), a shoemaker, and Lucy Walker, a cook. He was raised in relative poverty, but with a keen encouragement in the arts. He was self-taught but mixed with local artists such as Richard Harrington and George Sheffield, and was strongly influenced by the work of Turner. After an unsuccessful attempt to live as an artist in Carlisle he obtained a job and as a theatre scenery painter in Manchester in 1845, later also working in Glasgow in the same role. Encouraged by Daniel Macnee to take up landscape painting he moved to Hamilton from 1851-4 and worked there with Alexander Fraser. In 1854 he moved to Port Glasgow to work on his technique of painting ships and harbours. His paintings were noted for their sensitivity to atmosphere and light, were often of cloudy shorelines and busy harbours. He also began supplementing his income by illustrating books, before moving to Edinburgh in 1855. On coming to Edinburgh he lived in a terraced house at 5 Malta Terrace in the Stockbridge area of the city. Following Turner's example, he became a skilful painter of seaports. He was buried in Dean Cemetery Edinburgh on 23 November 1878. The grave bears a bronze medallion of his head by William Brodie...