Antique Scottish Highlands Signed Oil Painting Loch Tay Perthshire

“Loch Tay” by F. E. Jamieson (British 1895-1950) signed, lower corner with pseudonym “W. Richards” titled verso to canvas oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas: 16 x 24 inches Fine quality antique oil painting by the much admired and celebrated British artist F. E. Jamieson (1895-1950). The painting is signed by Jamieson to the lower right corner with his favoured pseudonym, “W. Richards”. The painting captures this brooding Highland landscape and the deep and dark waters of Loch Tay, one of the most stunning lochs in Scotland. Loch Tay is a magnificent dark stretch of water, 15 miles (24 km) long and around 508 ft deep. It’s the largest loch in Perthshire and one of the deepest in Scotland. To the north, the loch is flanked by the impressive bulk of the Ben Lawers mountain range, much of which is designated as a National Nature Reserve. The main A827 road runs high above the loch, west from Kenmore. The contours are gentler on the southern shore and Sustrans Cycle Route Number 7 runs along a quiet unclassified road. It’s hard to believe that ancient settlers once lived on Loch Tay, inhabiting artificially created islands known as crannogs. There are eighteen crannogs on Loch Tay, most are now submerged but a large crannog near the northern shore at Kenmore can be clearly seen. This was the ancient burial place of Queen Sybilla, wife of Alexander King of Scots. F. E. Jamieson (1895-1950) We are extremely fortunate to have been handling the works of the enigmatic British artist, F. E. Jamieson since the year we began art dealing, 1989. Over this time, coupled with our love of the Scottish landscape, we have bought and sold many hundreds of his paintings, in all their various guises and subjects and are considered by many to be a leading authority on the artist and his work. We are also in the early stages of publishing the Catalogue Raisonne for this artist, of which this painting will be featured. Mr. Jamieson was largely a painter of Scottish landscapes and loch scenes. Born in 1895, Jamieson lived on the south coast of England and was contracted to a large department store to supply them with his paintings. He was an ambitious man and keen to sell more works than through just one shop. In order to do this, he started to sign his works with pseudonyms other than his own name, in order that he could sell his work to a wider audience. It worked and it is considered that Jamieson at least 15 different pseudonym names on his paintings. In addition to selling through furniture shops, Jamieson would travel door to door offering his paintings to housewives and private buyers. In our years of researching the artist, we heard one story related to us by an old customer who remembers that Jamieson started selling door to door travelling by bicycle. By the end of his career, he was selling door to door in his Bentley motor car. In order to increase his output, Jamieson would often paint the same scene and subject many times over. His favourite area of Scotland was Loch Lomond and the Trossochs National Park, where he painted literally thousands of highland scenes, some of which numerous times over again. It was quite rare for him to include the human figure or cattle, though they do appear in more select works. Jamiesons favourite canvas size was 16 x 24 inches; sometimes going to 20 x 30 inches and rarely 12 x 20 inches and 20 x 24 inches. He often titled his works in pencil to the wooden stretcher bars, which have often been covered by framers but can often be found by removing the framers masking tape.