The celebrated amateur landscape painter, the Reverend John Thomson of Duddingston, is shown sketching on a camp-stool, his dog Bronte by his side. As a divinity student in Edinburgh he had attended classes held by Alexander Nasmyth and, like his teacher, he believed in working directly from nature. This informal drawing, also made outdoors, is by his friend, the writer and naturalist Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, who was also a keen amateur artist.