Born Edinburgh, 4 August; died Edinburgh on 15 July. Painter in oil of landscape, genre and portraits. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to an architect but preferring to pursue art he entered the Trustees Academy in 1815, studying under Scott Lauder. Continued his training in London 1876-1888 having visited the Riviera in c1880. His work developed in parallel with that of George Paul Chalmers and Wm McTaggart but with its own more gentle individuality. Apart from portraits, his favourite subjects were homely genre, especially scenes of childhood and old age; some of his earlier works have a pre-Raphaelite finish. Settled in London in 1876 but from 1888 spent his summers at Largs and winters in Edinburgh. Also painted a few Italian scenes. Armstrong called him 'a master of tone and atmosphere', while Caw spoke f his drawing which 'lacks decision and emphasis, his technique, fullness and grip, his ideas are not sufficiently materialised, tendencies which are more marked in his later work. On the other hand, his sentiment is often charming, and always refined and with it his delicate sense of colour is in full sympathy .. in the works of Israels, for example, the spectator feels that the atmosphere is bitterly cold, and that the little ones were shivering; but Cameron's world is an abode of happiness'. The influence of McTaggart in both colour and composition is very clear, especially during his later period. 'He lingers between passion and pathos, and rarely leaves the refinement of soothing semi-tones .. the modesty of reserve, the tuneful suggestiveness of native airs. In portraiture he seeks the normal mood, the habitual expression, and reads character by divination .. he possesses exceptional intellectual breadth and strong, reflective tendencies .. he wanders thoughtfully by the shore of Largo Bay, and there dreaming his picture, like Corot, he paints his dream'. During his final years the colours became brighter and more transparent. he contributed illustrations to Nimmo: Pen and Pencil Pictures from the Poets (1867) and Good Words.

Elected ROI 1883, ARSA 1859, RSA 1869, RSW 1878 and HRSW 1916. Exhibited RA (25) 1871-1892, RSA from 1871 until his death in 1918 and thereafter posthumously in 1919, 1926 and 1976 amounting to a total of almost 200 works, also RSW (9), RWS (1), GI (52), AAS regularly between 1890 and 1912, ROI (8) and L (1). Represented in National Galleries of Scotland (10), Kirkcaldy AG, Paisley AG, Perth AG, City of Edinburgh Collection (4) and Brodie Castle (NTS).

This painting is an oil study for the artist's The Funeral of a Little Girl on the Riviera, a painting Cameron exhibited at the RSA in 1881 and which was gifted to the McManus Art Gallery in Dundee in 1881. Cameron visited southern France in 1880 and in this painting he captures the heart rending subject of an infant death against the soft light of a Mediterranean landscape. Our figure is one of the two leading girls carrying the coffin.