A watercolour showing a view of a Highland landscape from the River Dee on the Balmoral Estate. The top of Lochnagar is shown in the background, rising from a large forest. Heather is shown in the foreground to the left. Inscribed below mounted sheet: View of the top of Loch Nagar from the Banks of the the Dee in Balmoral. Inscribed lower right: VR del: Sept: 23-1848 - A double pen and ink line border is shown around the edge of the mounted sheet. Queen Victoria visited Balmoral Castle for the first time in September 1848. The Queen was quite taken with Balmoral from her first visit. After arriving on 8 September 1848, Queen Victoria describes Balmoral in her journal as "a pretty little Castle, in the old Scotch style... In front are a nice lawn & garden, with a high wooded hill behind, & at the back, there is a wood. The hills rise all around." The Royal family originally leased the estate before buying it outright in 1851.