This is thought to be a highly worked compositional sketch for the most challenging work of Alexander’s entire career, a huge staircase ceiling decoration in oils on canvas commissioned for Gordon Castle near Fochabers by Alexander Gordon, 5th Marquess of Huntly and 2nd Duke of Gordon. Supposedly measuring twenty-two by twenty feet, the finished ceiling has long since disappeared, possibly in the 1760s or the 1770s during extensive alterations to the Castle. Painted between 1720 and 1725, it was the most ambitious Baroque ceiling in Scotland, for which the artist was paid eighty pounds.