Dunkeld, Perthshire from the East

John Murray, 3rd Duke of Atholl, was among several young Scottish lairds who commissioned views of their estates in the 1760s. In this case, he turned to the London-based but Perthshire-born Steuart, a Gaelic speaker able to bring a local eye to the commission. This extensive prospect looking northwards along the river Tay valley takes in the duke’s seat and Dunkeld’s cathedral ruins as well as part of the surrounding settlement. It is one of a group of small oil sketches worked up from studies made in the summer of 1764 and later exhibited in London.