View of Aberdeen, 1756

In 1738 William Mosman returned to Scotland from Rome, where he had been studying. This is a charming and simple painting of Aberdeen in the middle of the 18th century. Some of the groups of people have been painted larger than others. This allows us to see how the elegant ladies and salmon fishers, working the estuary, would have looked in the 1750s. This painting has obvious faults of perspective, which are surprising from an artist who had studied in Italy for six years.