A painting showing the paddle steamer ‘Dumbarton Castle’ in the Clyde, off Dumbarton Rock. The artist has shown her from the perspective of the shore and has set the ship against the spectacular scenery with Dumbarton Castle positioned high on the left. The far shore is cast in cloud and rain and the near shore is shown in the immediate foreground on the right. Smoke from the stack of the steamer echoes the clouds and sheets of rain falling over the land.

The painting contrasts different methods of sail, from the sailing brig on the right, the steamer with its smoke trailing and the rowing boat on the shore in the foreground.

The ‘Dumbarton Castle’ built in 1815, was the first of the Rothesay steamer trade and brought leisure travel via the day-long excursion trip. Although there were many vessels operating in river estuaries there are very few paintings of them and this is an early example.

John 'Jock' Wilson (1774-1855) was son of a Scottish merchant sea captain who became a house painter before having some art tution from Alexander Nasmyth and then practising as a drawing master. When he came to London in 1798 he continued house painting until employed for many years from the early 1800s to at least 1827 as a theatrical scene-painter. During this time he also began exhibiting oil works, mainly marine subjects and in large numbers, at the Royal Academy from 1807 and later at the Society of British Artists, of which he was a founder member in 1823-24 and President in 1827. He moved to Folkestone in 1853 with his painter son John James Wilson, of whose work the Museum also has two examples.