Lot 3: Frederic de Bourgeois, Baron Mercey (1805-1860)

View of Edinburgh from Calton Hill
signed and dated 'MERCEY 1853' (lower right)
oil on canvas
33 1/4 x 51 1/4 in. (84.5 x 130.2 cm.)

This magnificent panorama of Edinburgh, with a view stretching to the Pentland Hills in the distance, is a fascinating record of the city as it existed in the mid-nineteenth century. While many landmarks, familiar today, are already visible, some, such as the Scott monument and the National Gallery of Scotland, are yet to be constructed. De Mercey has taken as his vantage point on Calton Hill an almost identical site as that chosen by Alexander Naysmyth, whose view (fig. 1, Private Collection) was shown at the Royal Academy in 1826 (no. 412). A smaller version of Naysmyth's work can be seen in the City of Edinburgh Museums and Art Galleries.

Dominating the foreground of the composition, with its crenelated walls and battlements, is the old Bridewell, built in 1791 as a House of Correction. Adjacent to it is the old Calton Jail, while the governor's magnificent house, the castellated building behind, echoes the roofline of Edinburgh Castle on the Mound beyond. To the left of the governor's house is North Bridge, built over Waverley station, whose construction had begun in 1844. Punctuating the skyline above is the distinctive crown of the High Kirk of St Giles, on the High Street, the capital's principal place of worship.

The right side of the composition is punctuated by the long vista down Princes's Street, culminating in the tower of St John's Parish Church. Curiously, the spire of the Scott monument, erected between 1836 and 1846, does not appear, although William Playfair's Royal Scottish Academy, built between 1831 and 1836 and completed in 1844, can be seen en bloc, to the left. Opposite are the dome and twin towers of Robert Adam's Register House of 1774, built to house the public records of Scotland. Beside it can be seen the steeple of St Andrew's and St George's Parish Church at the end of George Street, adjacent to the 41 metre monument to Viscount Melville, erected in 1823 by William Burn, in St Andrew Square. At the far end of George Street can be seen the dome of the West Register House in Charlotte Square, built in 1814 as St George's Church to the designs of Robert Reid.

Benezit lists de Mercey as a much travelled writer and painter of landscapes whose works were frequently seen on the walls of the Paris Salon, where he was head of the section des Beaux-Arts following the retirement of M. Bonnieu. Although this picture is dated 1853, it would appear that the canvas was worked up from sketches taken up to a decade earlier.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.