Very Rare & Important Scottish Historical Oil Painting Royal Review Edinburgh

‘The Royal Review, Edinburgh – 1905’

by Robert Gemmell Hutchison (British 1855-1936)

signed lower front corner,

oil on canvas signed, titled on plaque

canvas: 14.25 x 19.5 inches

ornate gilt frame: 20 x 25 inches

Provenance: private collection, England, previously purchased Omell Galleries, London 1990.

Notes: Likely the preparatory oil sketch for the larger version, sold Bonhams Fine Paintings sale, 7th December 2010, Lot 18

The Royal Review, Edinburgh, 1905 By Robert Gemmell Hutchison (Scottish, 1855–1936)

An important historical work by celebrated Scottish painter Robert Gemmell Hutchison, depicting the Royal Review of Scottish Volunteers at Holyrood Park, Edinburgh, in 1905.

The Royal Review was an extraordinary spectacle and, at the time, represented the largest gathering of Scottish soldiers under arms ever assembled. Around 40,000 volunteers from across Scotland gathered in Holyrood Park for inspection by King Edward VII, while contemporary accounts estimated that approximately 250,000 spectators crowded the surrounding area to witness the event.

Hutchison captures the immense scale and atmosphere of the occasion from an elevated viewpoint. Dense crowds fill the foreground and sweep around the hillside, while ranks of troops occupy the park below. Smoke drifts across the scene as Edinburgh emerges through the atmospheric haze beyond, giving the painting both a remarkable sense of occasion and the distinctive atmospheric quality associated with Hutchison’s work.

The subject is particularly unusual within Hutchison’s oeuvre. Best known for his intimate Scottish landscapes, coastal subjects and scenes of rural life, the challenge of recording an event of this scale took the artist considerably beyond his more familiar subject matter. The result is an exceptionally ambitious composition combining his abilities as a landscape painter with a significant record of Scottish military and social history.

Hutchison was one of the best-known Scottish painters of his generation and was elected to both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. His connection with major royal occasions continued: five years after the 1905 Review, he received a commission connected with the coronation of King George V at Westminster Abbey.

The original gilt frame retains a presentation plaque reading “Royal Review Edinburgh, 1905 – R. Gemmell Hutchison, R.S.A., R.S.W.” A particularly interesting work by Hutchison, both for its unusually ambitious subject and as a visual record of one of the great public spectacles of Edwardian Scotland.

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