(Click second thumbnail above to watch video)
 
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
 
“...all accounts agree that Tobold Hornblower of Longbottom in the Southfarthing first grew the true pipe-weed in his gardens in the days of Isengrim the Second...the best home-grown still comes from that district, especially the varieties now known as Longbottom Leaf, Old Toby, and Southern Star.” - Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, "Concerning Pipe-weed"
 
Make the Southfarthing of J.R.R. Tolkien's Shire your own private retreat by hanging a museum-quality print of this original, hand-done painting in your space. The Southfarthing has few villages, but it is the home of hobbit luxuries. This is where wine like Old Winyards is cultivated, as well as the famous pipe-weed (hobbit tobacco, like Old Toby). The sunnier clime these crops prefer bespeaks a warm, leisurely place for slowing down and enjoying life.
 
Things to notice in this painting:
 
The theme of this work is how good life can be when we have peace.
You can see hobbits enjoying one of the games they were so good at: quoits.
Others are going out for a picnic at close of day, or enjoying a sip of wine, pipes, and a chat under a grape arbor.
Stoorish ancestry is apparent here - notice the beards.
There is a pipe-weed garden across the stream.
Other crops growing here include sun-loving herbs like lavender and yarrow, which would have been useful for the creation of hobbit medicines and toiletries.
J.R.R. Tolkien contributed to the Jerusalem Bible, and the Old Testament bears a lovely passage about mankind giving up the weapons of war and sitting under their own vine and fig tree; here, you see a Southfarthing hobbit at such peace that he has fallen asleep under another warm-climate plant - a fig tree.
 
No wonder Gandalf thought of the Shire as a place of private retreat when he was weary from his long Road. He could come here for fellowship, great food and drink, and all the leisure in the world. If reminders to slow down are helpful to you, this painting of the rarely-glimpsed Southfarthing in the Shire could act as a beautiful and inviting memo in your home or office.