View near Edinburgh

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Hospitality, Lancaster House

A man in highland dress watches a group of cattle at the water’s edge. In the distance is a view of Arthur’s Seat, the main peak of a group of hills in Holyrood Park (also called the Queen's or King's Park), Edinburgh. Through the trees the outline of Salisbury Crags, a series of 46-metre cliffs, can be made out.

The Edinburgh born artist Alexander Nasmyth knew this landscape intimately. In 1815, he exhibited a ‘View of Arthur’s Seat, near Edinburgh’ at the British Institution in London. In 1863, long after the artist’s death, his ‘View near Edinburgh, with Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags’ was sold through Christie’s.

Patrick Nasmyth, landscape painter, was born in Edinburgh, son of the painter Alexander Nasmyth. He was deaf and also unable to use his right hand as the result of an injury. He travelled through London with his father in 1810, there particularly to view Dutch pictures in private collections. The work of Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael would have a strong influence on his own work. He exhibited at the Associated Artists, the Royal Institution and the Scottish Academy, all in Edinburgh, before moving to London in 1810 and exhibiting at the Royal Academy, the British Institution and the Society of British Artists. Most of his works are Scottish landscape scenes. He died aged 44, after catching a chill, following a bout of influenza.

Places

Scotland, Midlothian, Edinburgh, Arthur's Seat, Salisbury Crags

Subjects

farmer/farm labourer, herdsman, topography, landscape C19th, genre, tree, cow, man, field, hedgerow, house, cottage, wall

Materials & Techniques

canvas, oil, oil painting

Artist

Patrick Nasmyth (1787 - 1831)

Title

View near Edinburgh

Date

1816

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

height: 45.00 cm, width: 60.00 cm

Acquisition

Presented by Miss M Marchant, August 1982

Inscription

sdbr

Provenance

With Leger Galleries, London, by 1954; collection of Miss M. Marchant; by whom presented to the Government Picture Collection in August 1982

GAC number

16081