A watercolour view of Carn Lochan overlooking the River Isla with a royal group and attendants on the left; Prince Albert leads Queen Victoria's pony; Prince Louis of Hesse stands beside his fiancé Princess Alice's pony and a guide leads that of Princess Helena. Signed and dated at bottom left: RP Leitch 1862. Verso: inscribed in a later hand and dated.

In 1860 and 1861 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert made four 'Great Expeditions' in the Highlands, where they would travel incognito with a small retinue, and sometimes stay overnight at inns. On the fourth 'Great Expedition' on 16 October 1861 the royal party journeyed on horseback to Carn Lochan for a picnic (another, much larger, watercolour showing the picnic was commissioned from the Bavarian watercolour painter Carl Haag by Queen Victoria in 1865 (see RCIN 450578). Victoria recorded the events of the day at length in her journal, noting that on their way back to Balmoral late in the afternoon she had to dismount from her horse on descending the steepest part of one hill, but '[I]t was so wet & slippery, that I had 2 falls, in one of which I rolled head over heels, to Grant's horror!' Grant was John Grant, the Queen's Head Forester at Balmoral Castle.

This watercolour was one of a series commissioned by Victoria shortly after Albert's death (14 December 1861) as mementoes of the 'Great Expeditions' they went on (see also RCINs 919681-919686, 919655, 919656 and 919674). The series of watercolours were originally mounted in View Album IX. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert compiled nine View Albums during their marriage. These albums contained watercolours and drawings documenting their life together and were arranged in chronological order. The albums were dismantled in the early twentieth century and rebound in new volumes both in a different arrangement and with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.

Richard Principal Leitch was the son of the royal watercolour tutor William Leighton Leitch, who taught Queen Victoria, her daughters and her daughter-in-law Princess (later Queen) Alexandra for almost twenty years.