Curatorial description (Accessed: 29 November 2018)
This calotype shows the painter Horatio McCulloch, who is best known for his magnificent views of the Scottish Highlands. He was born in Glasgow and named after the great naval hero, Lord (Horatio) Nelson, who had died only weeks earlier at the battle of Trafalgar. McCulloch studied art under John Knox and briefly worked as a snuff-box decorator before moving to Edinburgh. He quickly established himself as a respectable landscape painter, exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy from 1829 and was elected an associate in 1834. By the 1840s, his standing as an artist was equal to Hill's, but his later career established him as the better painter. His large-scale paintings of Scottish scenery helped shape the Victorian perception of the Highlands as a wild, romantic place.
