About this artwork
This painting shows a peat bog or ‘moss’ as weary horses make their way along the path at the end of the day, their carts stacked with fresh peat to be dried out and used for fuel. The Highland landscape setting is imagined. Graham’s painting is not an illustration of a literary subject, but when it was exhibited in 1867 it was accompanied by a modified quotation from the poem Retirement (1758) by the Scottish poet and moral philosopher James Beattie: 'When in the crimson cloud of eve / The lingering light decays'.
Updated before 2020
see media-
artist:Peter Graham (1836 - 1921) Scottish
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title:O'er Moor and Moss
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date created:1867
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:110.80 x 164.20 cm; Framed: 135.10 x 188.50 x 10.70 cm / 43.00 kg
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1979
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accession number:NG 2376
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gallery:
Peter Graham
Peter Graham
Graham's large paintings celebrate the romantic character of the Scottish Highlands. He trained at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh under Robert Scott Lauder and at first worked on figure subjects. From 1859 he began to concentrate on landscape painting after an inspiring holiday in Deeside....