The picture is presumed to have been painted while the sitter was accompanying the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) on a fishing trip to Scotland in April 1873. Teesdale later wrote to Blanchard Jerrold that ‘the salmon fishing turned out to be a perfect failure: and after two or three attempts Doré quite gave it up and occupied himself with his sketchbook … He worked with anything … I once saw him take his coffee and pour it over a page to produce a tone he fancied. The end of a pen, his finger, a thumb nail, anything seemed to do’.

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