A watercolour showing a view of the entrance to Fingal's Cave, with a sailing boat, and a Highlander standing on the right.

Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and some of their family visited Fingal's Cave on the Isle of Staffa during their tour of the West Coast of Scotland in 1847. The Queen recorded her impressions of the natural wonder in her journal: 'the wonderful Basaltic formation, which is most extraordinary ... we turned the corner to go into the renowned Fingall's Cave, the effect is splendid, like a great entrance to a hall, all vaulted but it looked rather awesome as we entered ... the rocks were all pink, blue & green which had a beautiful effect under water. The sea is immensely deep inside' (19 August 1847).

This watercolour was painted by William Leighton Leitch, who tutored Queen Victoria and some of her children for almost twenty years in watercolour painting. Leitch may have accompanied the royal party on the tour of Scotland but it is more likely that he followed the route at a later date, when he made this drawing and recorded other places visited by the Queen, such as Arrochar, Oban and Inverary. His souvenir views of the sights the royal couple saw while on their tour were originally mounted by them 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.

Text adapted from D. Clarke and V. Remington, Scottish Artists 1750-1900: From Caledonia to the Continent (2015).