A pencil and watercolour sketched view of the ruins of Holyrood Abbey. Inscribed: 'HOLYROOD' and signed and dated 'David Roberts 182[3/8?]. Verso: inscribed in a later hand 'Abbey Holyrood Sep. 5/53 / D Roberts'.

David Roberts began his career as a scene painter (initially in Edinburgh and Glasgow and then at Drury Lane and Covent Garden in London), before attaining success as a painter of picturesque topographical scenes. He travelled extensively on the Continent and in the Middle East, but endeavoured to return to his native Scotland on almost a yearly basis.

Ruins of the Abbey of Holyrood seems, on stylistic grounds, to date from 1823, perhaps the date inscribed on it; during that period Roberts was using the soft greenish tonality apparent in this work (see, for example, Roberts' watercolour of Paisley Abbey, dated 1825, British Museum inv.no.1940,0601.9). The inscription on the verso refers to the date on which Queen Victoria spent a night at Holyroodhouse, and perhaps suggests that the watercolour was not acquired until the 1850s. Indeed the Queen did not begin patronising Roberts until 1840, when she acquired his oil painting View of Cairo (RCIN 403602).

This watercolour was originally mounted in View Album VI. 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 with additional items, but a written record of their original contents and arrangement still exists.