In Cadzow Forest, with its ancient oaks dating from the time of David I and its famous herd of white cattle, mid nineteenth-century landscape painters discovered a Scottish equivalent to the type of subject matter offered by the Forest of Fontainebleau to the painters of the Barbizon School. During the 1830s Cadzow was explored by Horatio McCulloch, an older contemporary and friend of Fraser. From the early 1850s, when he turned decisively to landscape painting, Fraser worked regularly in the Hamilton area with Sam Bough.