A watercolour depicting the pavilion wing of Osborne House in the centre, with the main wing, very near completion, on the left, and work underway on laying out the terraces below.

This view is taken from a similar vantage point to RCIN 919843, but shows the main wing in a more advanced state.

Osborne House on the Isle of Wight was built by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert between 1845 and 1851 as a private family home, designed by Albert himself in the style of an Italian palazzo. Queen Victoria described it as their "sweet seaside home" (Queen Victoria's Journal, 26 August 1850).

The artist William Leighton Leitch taught the Queen and, later, the royal children and Princess of Wales watercolour painting, and often visited Osborne to do so. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert also acquired a number of Leitch's own landscape paintings in oils and watercolours.

This watercolour was originally mounted in View Album IV. 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.