A watercolour view of Dalkeith Palace, seen in the distance beneath the bridge over the River Esk in which two men are fishing.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made their first visit to Scotland in September 1842. The royal tour, which lasted two weeks, was largely organised by the 5th Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Lieutenant of the County of Midlothian and Gold Stick of Scotland, and his wife Charlotte, who was Queen Victoria's Mistress of the Robes, in conjunction with the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel. The Queen and Prince stayed at Dalkeith Palace, the seat of the Duke, for a number of nights at the beginning and end of their stay in Scotland. The house can be seen in the distance beneath the Montague Bridge (designed by Robert Adam in 1792) over the River Esk. Queen Victoria described Dalkeith as ‘a large house built of reddish stone … and the Park is fine & large’. She walked in the extensive grounds, ‘down by the stream (the river Esk), under a fine bridge, up a steep bank along the river’.

This watercolour is one of a series commissioned by the 5th Duke of Buccleuch to present to Victoria and Albert as a souvenir of their visit. The artist, William Leighton Leitch, taught the Duchess of Buccleuch watercolour painting, and from 1846 would be Queen Victoria’s own tutor for almost twenty years. However, the watercolours of the 1842 Scottish tour, which were painted in 1844, were not presented to Victoria at the time; she did not receive them until 1888, when the Duke's daughter-in-law Louisa sent them to her in a leather portfolio entitled 'Sketches in Scotland by William Leitch 1842'.