William Leitch in Monk's Robe ("The House of Death")

David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson first collaborated making photographs that were used to assist Hill’s practice as a painter. A partnership quickly developed, with Hill composing the scenes and posing sitters while Adamson operated the camera and printed the photographs with their signature soft warmth. This portrait, made in the pair’s first year together, features Hill’s friend, the Scottish painter William Leighton Leitch (1804–1883), dressed as a monk preparing to visit the dying.