This painting presents a panoramic view of the Firth of Clyde from Dalnottar Hill near the village of Old Kirkpatrick. Dumbarton Rock can be seen in the distance. In the middle distance on the left is Erskine House with its pleasure gardens. In the foreground is the Forth and Clyde Canal linking Grangemouth with the Clyde, opened just over thirty years earlier. Two of the first boats in Britain to be powered by steam can be seen plying their trade. One may be Comet, the first successful steamship in Europe, which was put into service in 1812.

John Fleming, 1792-1845

Born in Glasgow, Fleming lived and worked in Greenock. He was apprenticed to a house painter at the age of 14, and spent some time in London after his apprenticeship was complete. He then settled in Greenock where he established a practice as a painter of portraits and landscapes. He painted Inverclyde, the Highlands and Ayrshire and captured the process of expansion and industrialisation in Greenock itself. His landscape work became widely known after his collaboration with Glasgow engraver and publisher Joseph Swan on several series of engravings, including the very popular Lakes of Scotland (1834). When he died, the Greenock Advertiser described him as “the father of landscape painting in the West of Scotland”. The McLean Museum in Greenock holds a collection of his work.