Scenery of the Grampian Mountains

Landscape painter and poet George Fennel Robson was born in Durham in 1788. He displayed an early enthusiasm for drawing, acquiring his artistic skills through practice and whatever instruction he could find. He moved to London in 1804 to pursue his career as an artist and made a meagre living selling his work from a carver and gilder's shop in Holborn.

With the profits from the publication in 1808 of 'A View of Durham' he travelled to the Highlands of Scotland where he spent a year painting landscapes. He subsequently published 'Outlines of the Grampian Mountains'. The first edition was published in 1814, with plates prepared by Henry Morton from Robson's drawings. This edition was followed in 1819 by a second edition, which is the one displayed here, identical except that aquatint was applied to the etchings and the plates were hand coloured.

The 40 aquatint engravings in Scenery of the Grampian Mountains extends from Loch Lomond and the Trossachs eastward to Dunkeld, north to Blair Atholl, passing through Glen Tilt to Deeside, then to the Cairngorms and Speyside, and ends with a view of Ben Nevis from the north shore of Loch Eil.

The area had been previously visited by many notable artists, but none had produced drawings from Deeside or Speyside, and few had ventured off the road and into the mountains as Robson did.

Robson went on to enjoy a successful career as a landscape watercolour painter, and became President of the Royal Watercolour Society in 1820, showing 650 pictures at the Society's exhibitions, most of them featuring Highland subjects.

He died from food poisoning in 1833 while aboard a steam packet from London to Stockton-on-Tees, aged 44. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Mary-le-Bow in his native city of Durham.

You can read more about this remarkable volume of drawings and the artist in an online article by Robin N. Campbell.