This interesting collection of watercolours are by the barrister Hugh Barklie Blundell McCalmont (1836–1888). Hugh was the eldest son of Rev Thomas McCalmont, and was born in Florence in 1836. His paternal grandfather was Hugh McCalmont (1765–1838) of Abbeylands, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, who was the wealthy owner of Hope & Experiment plantation in Berbice, British Guiana. Hugh Barklie's two uncles, Hugh and Robert, established the successful London banking company McCalmont Brothers and were among the richest men dying in Britain in the 19th century.
Born into this rich pedigree, Hugh Barklie was well educated—at Harrow, King's College London, Heidelberg and Trinity Hall, Cambridge—and went on to become a lawyer. These watercolours illustrate McCalmont's travels, in Britain, Ireland and on the Continent, and include some interesting subjects showing McCalmont's personal connections, such as legal caricatures, the artist's daughter Ethel, his uncle's home at Gatton Park in Surrey, and a view from the window of John Keble's room at Oxford. Many of the paintings have a particular charm by virtue of being miniature in format. Hugh Barklie Blundell McCalmont was himself painted in watercolour aged four by the French artist and miniaturist François Théodore Rochard (1798–1858); perhaps it was this encounter that influenced McCalmont's fondness of watercolour and the miniature.
