A painting as lyrical as its title, Joseph Farquharson’s “The Shortening Winter’s Day” is one of the artist’s many snowscapes populated with flocks of sheep. The exceptionally skilled Farquharson (1846 – 1935) often based his winter scenes on the woods and land surrounding his home in Finzean, Scotland. Farquharson’s love of his country and his attention to detail contributed to this work’s remarkable realism. When the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy, it was lauded for “the ingenuity of painting, and for the power to convey the illusion of sunlight on snow, darkened by the shadows and the leafless trees behind which the winter sun is setting." The landscape was labeled "a tour de force."

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