My jaw dropped when I saw this water colour. It was in with a box of photos from my Mother's house. It is, for the local walker, the unmistakable profile of Binnein Shuas and other Ardverikie hills viewed from near the Badenoch Wall on the north side of the Glen Spean valley. Loch Laggan is out of view from here but the body of water we see is Loch Cailleach and there is a thin grey ribbon to the right, the drystone dyke that is the Badenoch Wall.
While the picture is very feature faithful to the scene it far from just a painting of a photograph and the artist has heightened the hills and exaggerated those mountain top spurs to a profile that is familiar to any one who knows them. I am disappointed the picture lacks a signature and there is nothing on the back. My mother has vague recollection of someone giving them -this is one of a set of two- to my late father. He definitely went fishing at the loch and perhaps the place came up in conversation with the artist and it would be the perfect gift for him.

I feel like I have studied the painting for hours now. The composition is accurate so it is possible to walk to the position, but of course the magic of a painting is such that it can contain multiple viewpoints and horizons without ever looking too abstract. To seek out this spot in the first place requires intimate local knowledge and the subject of the second painting requires a good bit of deduction, which I have now managed. It is also well off the beaten track but in another lonely Lochaber mountainside. (For another blip)

If the artist is still with us it would be lovely if he or she stepped forward.

The extra is my feeble digital version taken this morning.