Lot Essay
As well as possessing exceptional technical ability, Paton studied Scottish folklore and Celtic legends, the knowledge of which suffuse his paintings and drawings. Paton's great fairy painting The Fairy Raid was completed in 1867, although he had been encorporating fairies into his compositions from 1847 when he produced The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania. In this picture delicate nude fairies, similar to the fairy in the present drawing, encircle the couple.