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Museum-Quality Matte Paper Print available in two sizes:
12" x 16" (30cm x 40cm): $35.00
24" x 32" (60cm x 80cm): $48.00
"No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these)...all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage." - The Hobbit, Chapter I: An Unexpected Party
Looking for Tolkien-inspired art for your kitchen, dining room, breakfast nook, or pantry? A museum quality print of this original-hand done painting of Bilbo Baggins in his best pantry at Bag End could turn a special corner of your home into a comforting scene of hobbit peace and plenty!
I’m an award-winning fine artist, and the author of The Art of Mercy in Middle-earth, and this painting is my tribute to the marvelous pantries in the hole in the ground that are mentioned at the beginning of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. It’s a sunny morning in early summer, and Bilbo’s pantry is bursting with fresh, local produce, scrumptious baked goods, pickles and preserves, drying herbs, and a few luxuries. Bilbo is choosing whatever he’d like to make up either his first or second breakfast!
Things to notice in this painting:
Vegetables from Bilbo’s own garden and from neighboring gardeners (like the Gaffer) and farmers includes lettuce, carrots, cabbage, taters, onions, artichokes, beets, turnips, green beans, cardoons, and “nasturtian” leaves.
Fruits include the last of the winter storage apples, plus fresh plums, strawberries, and blackberries. Bilbo has a little bowl of jewel-like red currants in one hand.
Bilbo has also been out picking wild mushrooms in some secret location. Perhaps some grow beneath the tree atop The Hill, or perhaps he’s been on a hobbit walking-party to the Woody End.
There are fresh herbs like chives and parsley in a basket on the tiled floor, and other herbs are drying in the rafters overhead.
There are large sacks of flour under the table (can you guess how they are labeled, based on the letter shown?) for baking all the goods on the shelves, like seedcake, raised pie, muffins, breads, and some rather delicious looking buns dotted with toasted sunflower seeds.
Baskets hold a large supply of sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, and walnuts. There are also home-dried raisins.
Apart from the big pickle barrel, there are dozens of containers of preserves of different kinds, as well as different vinegars, and observant eyes will spot the big mustard pot that also appears in my painting, A Nice Little Second Breakfast.
There is a wooden chest of dried herbs and spices for making teas and seasoning meals, and atop that, a decorative little salt box. Where do you think hobbits got their salt? Perhaps from mines at Quarry or Standelf? Or even from the Blue Mountain Dwarves?
Every attempt to illustrate a detail mentioned in any of Tolkien’s masterpieces involves so much research. I always adhere as closely as I possibly can to any detail he gave us and then try to fill in the blanks with love and sensitivity to what I’ve learned about a particular culture or place in Middle-earth from a lifetime of reading. I hope you enjoy seeing Bilbo here at great ease, enjoying the preparation for a relaxing meal. Truly, that’s one of the finest enjoyments in life.
May hanging a print of Bilbo’s delightful pantry in your home bless it with peace of plenty!