Album, 1827

Inscribed “Drawings by Mary Parker Lady Leighton” on front pastedown. Leighton made the album during an extensive tour of the Rhineland, Switzerland, and northern Italy, in the company of her mother and brother. The journal and drawings of the tour by her brother, John Parker, are at the National Library, Aberystwyth. See: Parry, Edward, "The Revd John Parker: ‘a warm partizan of Gothic art'", Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society, vol. 64, (2020), pp. 90-114.

The album contains graphite and watercolor sketches of scenes in Wales and Switzerland. Welsh scenes include pencil drawings of a bow-meeting at Hawarden Castle and of the Erbistock Rectory, both in North Wales. Swiss scenes focus on such popular tourist destinations as Lake Morat, Lake Thun, the Upper Grinewald Glacier, and the Drachenfels. Most of her Swiss sketches are in watercolor over graphite, with two unfinished drawings including notations that describe the scenes’ missing colors and light effects. The scrapbook also includes sketches of domestic scenes; character studies; portraits, including one of her mother reading; copies after Old Masters; and drawings of architectural ornament. These last reflect a shared interest with her elder brother, John Parker, a clergyman and antiquarian.