WILLIAM DYCE, R.A., H.R.S.A. | Glen Rosa, Isle of Arran

The artist's studio sale, Christie's, London, 5 May 1865, lot 93 (bought Agnew for £157 10s);

James Broughton Dugdale (1855-1927), of Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire, his sale, Christie's, London, 24 June 1927, lot 131 (bought Agnew for 5 guineas);

R. F. Goldschmidt, his sale, Christie's, London, 26 June 1941, lot 25;

Christie's, London, 2-3 April 1969, lot 47 (bought McNichol for 400 guineas);

Mrs Charlotte Frank, from whom purchased by Sir David Scott , 18 June 1969 for £590

Possibly London, Society of British Artists, 1865;

Manchester, Royal Jubilee Exhibition, 1887, no.1510;

London, Maas Gallery, English Romantic Paintings, 1800-1900, 1965, no.8

Allen Staley, 'William Dyce and Outdoor Naturalism', Burlington Magazine, 1963, pp.474-75;

Marcia Pointon, William Dyce 1806-1864, Oxford, 1979, p.191, illustrated as plate 57;

William Dyce and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision, exhibition catalogue, Aberdeen Art Gallery, 2006, p.168;

Sotheby's, Pictures from the Collection of Sir David and Lady Scott, 2008, p.54, illustrated p.55

Dyce seems to have first visited the island of Arran on the west coast of Scotland in 1856, but it was the stay that he made there in the summer of 1859 that was the most productive. The village of Glen Rosa and the valley and burn of the same name that lead down to Brodick Bay are on the east side of the island. The present drawing shows the burn itself and the mountainous interior, the granite and gabbro rock formations of which had been smoothed and softened by glacial action, although Goat Fell stands forth as a jutting pyramidal peak. Dyce closely observed the Triassic sandstones of the foreground, a bar of which is seen on the right side, and the loose shales through which the burn has cut its course and which show as an exposed cliff-face on its banks. The inclusion of the picturesque figure of a shepherdess and flock, suggests that the picture was intended for sale, although it in fact remained in the artist's possession until his death. Another watercolour from the 1859 trip is Goat Fell, Isle of Arran (Victoria & Albert Museum, London) which shows essentially the same view towards the north-west but with a different effect of light and a more cursory treatment of the foreground.