3-043-724 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Homewards", by Peter Graham, in the exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1872. Engraving of a painting. '...this picture of an auld farmer taking his plough team "homewards" across a burn in the gloaming has sterling merits...The effect of the sky just after sundown, and of the gathering gloom relieved only by reflected light, is exceedingly truthful. Nor will the picture be found wanting in sentiment, especially to a Scotchman. "The Cotter's Saturday Night" of Burns will very probably suggest itself; and two stanzas in particular of that poem, though they do not coincide in every detail, are the most fitting accompaniment to the picture that occurs to us: November chill blaws loud wi' angry augh; The short'ning winter-day is near a close; The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh, The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose; The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, This night his weekly moil is at an end, Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, And weary o'er the moor, his course does homeward bend...".' From "Illustrated London News", 1872.