James Campbell Noble

Harbour Seascape - Scottish Edwardian Impressionist art marine oil painting

Circa 1910

James Campbell Noble was born in Edinburgh, in 1846, and was the cousin of the painter Robert Noble, whose teacher he was. He traveled throughout Europe to paint, where the Netherlands and Italy were particular favorites. Initially, he began with rustic genres such as dark cottages and outside life. Then, when he became a member of ARSA in 1879 and the Royal Scottish Academy in 1892, he abandoned the previous subject for land and seascape scenery and marine paintings of rivers and ports.

Noble painted the scenery on the Clyde, Seine, Tyne, Merwede, Maas (Meus) and the Rhine. For a long part of his life, he actually lived in the Netherlands where his favorite port for painting seemed to have been Dordrecht, Dort for short. There are quite a number of his oil paintings painted in this harbor vicinity, which also seem to have attracted other painters. However, he also painted in places like Gravendeel, Volendam and Zaandam. In the early 1880s, he painted the rocky coastal scenes of Berwickshire whilst he was living in Coldingham.

Noble returned however to the Netherlands in 1900 painting the Dutch waterways again. Towards the end of his life, he lived again in Scotland, where he lived in Dumfries and Galloway and where he is also mentioned in Corstorphine in 1896. His Sunset near Glencaple was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1913. His portrait was painted by the well-known portrait painter John Pettie (1839–93) and is exhibited in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. He died on 25 September 1913 in Ledaig, Argyll.