Among those businesses is McEwan Gallery in Royal Deeside, which hosts its 44th annual summer show this year. Running until late October, the exhibition offers pictures from the traditional to the contemporary.
A previously lost drawing by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88) is one of the highlights, which the gallery’s Rhod McEwan came across on the market, miscatalogued. But, he says, “you get an eye for these things”, and he delved into the picture’s history. His research led him to identify it as one of the 18th century master’s imaginary landscapes. Drawn c.1780, it features a classical country house and reflects the influence of the Franco-Italian artist Gaspard Dughet.
Also on offer is a selection of works by well-known Scottish artists such as William McTaggart and Sir Edwin Landseer.
Four paintings by “the painting laird” Joseph Farquharson (1846-1935) are available, including a large landscape of the Feugh River on the artist’s own Aberdeenshire estate. Evening’s Last and Sweetest Hour was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1906 and exemplifies the artist’s distinctive handling of paint to depict silver birch, shadows and sunset.
