About this artwork
This painting shares similarities with highland scenes by Fraser’s two eminent London-based contemporaries, David Wilkie and Edwin Landseer. In this painting the father, in full highland dress, has returned from a day of shooting and offers up the biggest of his catch to his wife. She is preparing vegetables for the pot, while also shielding the smallest child who stares at the large upturned grey heron anxiously. The older children empty their father’s bag, laying out the smaller birds on the earth floor of their home. The 2nd Baron Northwick (1770-1859) purchased this painting for a new picture gallery which he constructed at Northwick Park near Moreton-in-the Marsh in the 1830s.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Alexander Fraser, the elder (1786 - 1865) Scottish
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title:A Highland Sportsman
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date created:1832
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materials:Oil on panel
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measurements:78.10 x 109.30 cm; Framed: 92.00 x 123.30 x 9.00 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1951
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accession number:NG 2134
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gallery:
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subject:
Alexander Fraser, the elder
Alexander Fraser, the elder
In 1801 Fraser was admitted to the Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh as a student of the history painter John Graham, and was a contemporary of David Wilkie and William Allan. Having made his public exhibition debut with the Associated Artists of Edinburgh in 1809, Fraser launched himself as a genre...