This is actually one of the most famous paintings in the world.

I know you are thinking, “But if that’s true, why don’t I recognize it?” The thing is you do, just not as a piece of art. This stag is everywhere: at one point it was used in the promotion of Dewar Whiskey, there is a BBC drama about it, and, most importantly, it is the logo for the number one best-selling butter brand in the western world. That's right, Challenge Butter sports this painting, miniaturized, on the side of all its boxes. The company doesn’t admit this formally, however the image is identical, down to the location of the points of the stag's horns. The company does admit that it got its name from a portrait of two stags fighting and, sure enough, there exists another painting by Henry Landseer called The Challenge that pictures two stags about to duke it out.

In the art world, this work holds a lot more meaning than as a symbol for booze or butter. The whole majestic mammal standing in the misty mountains is a cornerstone of the classical Scottish aesthetic. The area is portrayed as this old and untamed land in the north that is still in touch with its roots. The problem with this is that Sir Edwin Henry Landseer isn’t Scottish, nor was he some sort of expert on the area north of the United Kingdoms. This painting was also not made for Scotland, but for the House of Lords, which is a long way from Edinburgh. Really, if anything, it represents the tourism that has occurred in Scotland for the past two hundred years. As a result, some people in Scotland would really like it if some other work could be hallowed as an icon for the country, instead of the famous butter deer.