Lot Essay
Born near Campbeltown, the son of a crofter, William McTaggart studied at The Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh. A painter of coastal scenes, he established a broad style, exceptional for the day in its freedom of expression. By the late 1870s, when the present composition was painted, he worked in Carnoustie on the east coast in the spring and early summer and at Machrihanish on the west coast in the autumn. He died in Midlothian in 1910.