Alexander Hunter FRSE FRS Rutherglen Tower, Lanarkshire, Scotland

An original 1877 watercolour painting, Alexander Hunter, Rutherglen Tower, Lanarkshire, Scotland.

An evocative landscape sketch at Rutherglen by Surgeon Major Alexander Hunter FRSE FRS (1816–1890). Hunter was a surgeon in the East India Company's Madras Army and was also a skilled and trained artist. He was a pioneer of photography in India and in 1850 he founded the Madras School of Art, the first school of art and design in India.

Hunter retired and returned from India in 1873, so this drawing was produced not long after his return to Edinburgh, where he had been a young man and student. He resided at 18 Belgrave Crescent in Edinburgh's New Town, and evidently travelled within Scotland and to Ireland in the years following his return.

In this fantastic drawing we get a sense perhaps of Hunter encountering the landscapes of Scotland with the curiosity of a tourist after all those decades abroad. At the bottom of the paper he annotates: 'Graham of Skelmorlie Castle, Wemyss Bay had fine pictures.' This refers to John Graham (1797–1886) a Glasgow textile and Port wine merchant, who was also a great patron of the Arts with an outstanding collection, which Hunter presumably visited.

In watercolour with ink and graphite. On grey paper. There is an additional ink sketch on the verso. Please see photos for detail.