A View of Perth from the South

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This is one of two engravings by Rutherford (see also GAC 17032), which show views of the city of Perth in central Scotland. Together with two further views, showing Melrose~Abbey and Dryburgh Abbey, were advertised for sale together from 1776 to 1778.

Landscape painter Archibald Rutherford was born in Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders. In c.1762 he was appointed the Drawing Master at Perth Academy. Rutherford was simultaneously the Perth based agent for a fabric printing business, George Swan and Sons. However, by 1776 he had moved to Edinburgh and that year he announced, in the ‘Caledonian Mercury’ newspaper, his intention to open ‘a public school, at his house… for teaching the Elements of Perspective drawing… and the orders of architecture and fortification.’ The school failed to materialise and instead the Board of Manufacturers reportedly encouraged him to live and teach in Glasgow. After Rutherford’s premature death, a sale of his drawings was held in Edinburgh, in 1779.

Places

Scotland, Perth and Kinross, Perth Bridge (Smeaton's Bridge), Perth (Scotland), River Tay

Subjects

topography, townscape/cityscape

Materials & Techniques

engraving

Artist

Archibald Rutherford (1743 - 1779)
Victor Marie Picot (1744 - 1802?)

Title

A View of Perth from the South

Date

9 July 1776

Medium

Engraving

Acquisition

Origin uncertain

GAC number

17031