RENT-DAY IN THE WILDERNESS 



63 



The prevalent tone of colour in this picture is grey. The background opens into 

 distance, showing the opposite shores of the lake, and an approaching storm If one 

 could only get rid of the sense of animal-suffering which the subject but too forcibly 

 suggests, the work would command unmixed admiration. 



" Scene : Aa na MuUtch, head of Loch Affrie, 1722. 

 "After the defeat of the Stuart army of 17 15, at Sheriff Muir, Colonel Donald Murchison, 

 to whom the Earl of Seaforth confided his confiscated estates in Ross-shire, defended them for 

 ten years, and regularly transmitted the rents to his attainted and exiled chief. 'A more 

 disinterested hero never lived.' " 



This passage, from R. Chambers's "Annals of the Domestic History of Scotland," 

 supplied Landseer with a subject for a large picture, entitled " Rent-day in the 

 Wilderness," exhibited at the A.cademy in 1868. The work was a commission from 

 the late Sir Roderick I. Murchison, who bequeathed it to the Scottish National 

 Gallery. Sir Roderick was, I believe, descended from the Colonel Murchison 

 whose fidelity to his chieftain the picture illustrates; yet it can by no means 

 rank among the painter's best works ; and certainly contrasts very unfavourably with 

 a much smaller canvas, exhibited at the same time; this bore no title, but instead, 



was introduced by some words spoken, presumably, by a "stalker" or keeper: 



"Well, sir, if the deer gat the ball, sure's death Chevy will not leave him." A 

 wounded stag is watched by a hound ; both lie on a waste of snow. The animals 

 are represented with the truth of texture and skilful composition that mark the best 

 period of the painter's career. 



At the sale, in 1868, of the collection of the late Mr. James Fallows, of Manchester, 

 a small picture by Landseer, representing "A Bull Terrier," with a bone and a red 

 pan, was bought by Messrs Agnew for 210 guineas. 



Among the studies Landseer made for the bronze lions that decorate the Nelson 

 column In Trafalgar Square — works that will presently be referred to — were two which, 

 in the form of oil-paintings, were exhibited at the Academy in 1869. They are but 

 sketches, executed with apparent rapidity, yet admirable for anatomical knowledge and 

 character in movement and action. Nothing of their kind could be finer than these 

 studies. Another contribution from the same hand exhibited with them — and, judging 

 from the crowd of visitors who daily gathered before it, the most popular picture In the 

 whole gallery — was " The Swannery invaded by Sea-eagles." The subject is assumed 

 to have been suggested by the following anonymous lines : — 



" As rapt I gazed upon the sedgy pool, 

 Where in majestic calm serenely sail'd 

 Its arch-neck'd princes in their snow-white plumes — 

 Cleaving the air with sharp and strident sound, 



