Sunday Morning

A family with their deerhound in a highland landscape

Pencil over lithographic base

44 x 58 cm

Click here to view our own original oil of the present subject

£350

This interesting work on paper relates to the recorded print by Frederick Bromley after Johnston’s original. However, differences from the finished print and the apparent medium of graphite over a lithographic base suggest that the present example could be a preparatory stage of the printing process.

The British Museum’s example carries the following line from Robert Burns’ poem, ‘A Cotter’s Saturday Night’, first published in 1786:

 “From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs. That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad”

 The full poem describes how the cotter (a peasant who rented a cottage in exchange for labour instead of money) and his family can finally relax on a Saturday evening in the knowledge that Sunday is a day of rest.  The subsequent morning, depicted here by Johnston, shows the family at peace in an idyllic representation of Scottish rural life.   The scene carries greater significance alongside the following lines of Burns’ poem, which contrasts the simple cottage life of the labouring class with the luxury of those in palaces:

 “From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
'An honest man's the noblest work of God';
And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refin'd!

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle.”