Signed lower right: Queen’s View, - Loch Tummel. 3.
Sep. 1880. Wm Simpson
Watercolour over pencil
36.7 by 54.2 cm., 14 ½ by 21 ¼ in.
‘Queen’s View’ overlooking Loch Tummel is said to have
been named after Queen Victoria’s visit to the area in 1866. Although it is
thought that the name predates her visit and that the view is named after Robert
the Bruce’s first wife, Queen Isabella. The view, which is one of the most
photographed in Scotland, has changed substantially since Simpson painted his
watercolour. In the 1950s Loch Tummel was dammed as part of the Hydro-Electric
Power Scheme and consequently the loch’s water level rose by 4.5m.
Simpson initially apprenticed to a firm of
lithographers in Glasgow, before moving to London in 1851. He became celebrated
as a war artist, covering the Crimean war and travelling with the British Army
from 1854. Following the success of his lithographs of the Crimean war, Simpson
was asked to travel extensively, capturing events, wars and the people involved
both in his sketches and studies and through his writing. Simpson’s extensive
travels and reputation as journalist and artist, brought him to the attention
of the Queen and the Prince of Wales and he accompanied them on various trips
and visited Sandringham, Balmoral and Abergeldie. Simpson eventually settled in
Willesden, North London in 1885, where he remained until his death.
The present watercolour dates from his return to
Britain, at the end of the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1879/80 and his return to
the region in the company of Sir Peter Lumsden with the Afghan Boundary
Commission in autumn 1884.