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Rock on the Beach

Artist Lady Sophia Dunbar (Cheshire, England, 1814 - 1909)

Date1869

Mediumwatercolour on paper

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 25.9 cm, Width: 36.3 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1989.

CopyrightOut of copyright

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG008390

Keywords

Beach

About MeLady Dunbar (1814-1909) was born in Cheshire as Sophia Orred. In 1840, upon her marriage to Sir Archibald Dunbar, she came to live in Elgin on the Moray coast. At this time she received private tuition from a number of drawing masters, including John Le Capelain of Jersey, but it was after the birth of her youngest child in 1859 that her 'career' as a painter began. Her first exhibited works appeared at the Society of Female Artists in 1863 and the Royal Scottish Academy in 1867. Henceforth the subjects of her paintings alternated between landscape views from abroad (the Dunbars were intrepid tourists, travelling as far afield as Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Algeria) and rural scenes observed closer to home in Morayshire and Aberdeenshire. When she exhibited for the last time at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1888 she had shown 42 paintings in total, a number which distinguishes her as a leading nineteenth-century lady watercolourist.

In a restrained and complementary palette of raw umber against ultramarine blue, this watercolour is dominated by a large rocky outcrop from which the painting takes its name. It is this centrally-placed foreground feature that receives the most careful rendering; the sea and opposite shoreline are painted in flat washes almost as afterthoughts. The coastal subject probably reflects the tuition of John Le Capelain, who was a specialist of marine and landscape subjects.