Painting
Maker & role
Reverend Robert G Fraser (b.1832, d.1905), Artist
Production date
1869
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Object detail
Title
Untitled (View of a ruined tower-house on a coastal promontory: Rosyth, Firth)
Production place
Collection
Measurements
0 - Whole, H: 52.5 x W: 92.5cm (H: 525 x W: 925mm)
Subject person
Subject Place
Signature & marks
Registration number applied verso LRHS.
Credit line
Gift, NSW Department of Planning and Environment, 1987
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Rouse Hill Estate Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
View of a ruined tower-house on a coastal promontory [Rosyth, Firth]. Rev. Robert G Fraser (1832-1905), Scotland, 1869.
Description
A framed oil painting depicting a ruined Scottish tower house on a tidal promontory, signed lower centre 'R.G. [Robert George] Fraser 1869'. Pictured at low tide, a rustic fence extends out into the waterline.
The typical arrangement of loch-side ‘tower houses’ such as these complicates the identification of Fraser's subjects. Ths is likely Castle Rosyth, Fife, built in the mid 15th century and expanded in the 16th and 17th. Some 15 kilometres west of Edinburgh on the opposing side of the Firth of Forth and (once) highly picturesque, its ruins were drawn and painted by artists including Turner. Today it is landlocked and part of a Royal Navy dockyard.
This is one of several paintings of Scottish scenes located in the back hall at Rouse Hill by the Rev. Robert G. Fraser (see also R89/19, R89/21). In July 1868 Bessie Buchanan (later Rouse) and her parents William and Elizabeth, who were then staying with Fraser’s father the Rev. Robert William Fraser in Edinburgh (Bessie and Robert William were cousins), visited an exhibition of his paintings. When the Buchanans left Britain Fraser Snr. wrote to his uncle following up on an offer he had made to take several of his son's views back to Australia with him, with the hope of promoting sales to other expatriate Scots. From 1868-88 Fraser exhibited 20 paintings in 13 shows at the Scottish Royal Academy, all of Scottish landscapes.
The typical arrangement of loch-side ‘tower houses’ such as these complicates the identification of Fraser's subjects. Ths is likely Castle Rosyth, Fife, built in the mid 15th century and expanded in the 16th and 17th. Some 15 kilometres west of Edinburgh on the opposing side of the Firth of Forth and (once) highly picturesque, its ruins were drawn and painted by artists including Turner. Today it is landlocked and part of a Royal Navy dockyard.
This is one of several paintings of Scottish scenes located in the back hall at Rouse Hill by the Rev. Robert G. Fraser (see also R89/19, R89/21). In July 1868 Bessie Buchanan (later Rouse) and her parents William and Elizabeth, who were then staying with Fraser’s father the Rev. Robert William Fraser in Edinburgh (Bessie and Robert William were cousins), visited an exhibition of his paintings. When the Buchanans left Britain Fraser Snr. wrote to his uncle following up on an offer he had made to take several of his son's views back to Australia with him, with the hope of promoting sales to other expatriate Scots. From 1868-88 Fraser exhibited 20 paintings in 13 shows at the Scottish Royal Academy, all of Scottish landscapes.
Accession number
R89/20
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