A Family Meal

John Faed was the eldest son of the artistic Faed family from Gatehouse-of-Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire. At just 9 years old he learnt how to paint miniatures and when he left school at the age of 11 he chose this as his occupation against his father's wishes. The success John achieved however, won his father round and in 1840 he permitted his son to go and study at the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh. This experience helped John to move on from miniatures and tackle historical, literary and biblical subjects. From 1864 he spent several years living in London where his brother had already made a name for himself. There John painted large scale historical scenes but it was with genre and literary subjects that he was most successful. He returned to live in Gatehouse in 1880.