A watercolour showing an exterior view of Dalkeith House from the park, with a large tree in the foreground right and, foreground centre, a broken branch lying on the ground. Signed and dated 'A Perigal Junr 1843'.

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. Victoria described Dalkeith as ‘a large house built of reddish stone … and the Park is fine & large’. 

This watercolour was originally mounted in View Album I. 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.