An album of drawings, monochrome washes and watercolours, the majority landscape subjects including: Views in Northern Italy; Venice; Studies of Osborne House and it's formal gardens and terraces at East Cowes, Isle of Wight; Scottish landscapes; and Figurative studies, possibly of Royal subjects

The Glaswegian-born William Leighton Leitch began his career as a scene painter at the Glasgow Theatre Royal, although later he worked predominantly in watercolour. Leitch spent years travelling throughout the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy, earning a living teaching painting to aristocratic patrons. Later in life Leitch taught Queen Victoria to paint landscapes in watercolour, and was also employed to teach the royal children, including Princess Alice to whom this album purportedly belonged, presumably as a teaching aid.

The second daughter and third child of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, Princess Alice, later The Grand Duchess of Hesse (1843-1878) adopted the charitable role within the Royal Family that had been put forward by her father. With a reputation for sweetness of disposition, the Princess acted as peacemaker from an early age within an often turbulent Royal Household, frequently acting as intermediary between the Queen and her heir, Bertie, later King Edward VII. Following her marriage to Louis of Hesse, Princess Alice took a keen interest in child welfare, and the welfare of her subjects; in housing the mentally ill, and in assisting the victims of the Austro-Prussian War, and later the Franco-Prussian War. She died in 1878 and is buried at Darmstadt, Germany.

This sketchbook clearly shows Leitch's progression from preliminary sketches in black and white to fully-worked compositions in colour, and must have been a wonderful tool by which Princess Alice could learn to paint like the Master himself.