It is quite possible that the Frank Rutley who painted these 19th-century landscapes was the pioneering 19th-century geologist and mineralogist Frank Rutley (1842–1904). Rutley was born at Dover, Kent and wrote specifically on 'The Eruptive Rocks of Brent Tor' (1878). He settled in London where he held professional appointments, first at the Geological Survey Office in Jermyn Street, and in charge of the rock-collection in the Museum of Practical Geology, and from 1882 as Lecturer on Mineralogy in the Royal College of Science.

Frank Rutley published and lectured widely, including seminal textbooks in the field such as Mineralogy (1874), The Study of Rocks (1879) and Rock-forming Minerals (1888). He illustrated these texts himself, not only with scientific diagrams but also with wood-engraved plates, showing poetic landscape vistas.