Sheltered under the towering trees that dwarf her diminutive size, a young girl gazes out across the waterway before her. In the background, Wales’s Conwy Castle rises, a dreamlike apparition behind its stalwart walls.¹ Curiously, the child seems more interested in what lies out beyond the quay rather than the impressive medieval fortress. What adventures might await anyone daring enough to venture across the waters?

Mary Nimmo Moran created this work during a visit to Europe in 1882 with her husband, the artist Thomas Moran (1837–1926). Nimmo Moran most likely etched the original copper plate on-site, outdoors, as was her preference.² She may have spotted the girl walking along the harbor and been reminded of herself as a child. This trip was a homecoming for Nimmo Moran. Born in Strathaven, Scotland, she immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of ten, which is about the age of the young girl portrayed in A Glimpse of Conwy.³

—Sandra Pauly, Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar for Moran Collection Research, 2021

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¹ Although the Welsh use the spellings Conwyn and Conwy, both Nimmo Moran and Thomas Moran used the spelling Conway. There is a Conway Castle in Ireland, but this is the castle in Wales. Wilkins, Thomas Moran: Artist of the Mountains, 188; Morand, Thomas Moran: The Field Sketches, 63–64; and Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 266–67.
² Vittoria, “Nature and Nostalgia in the Art of Mary Nimmo Moran,” 26.
³ Nimmo Moran also created Cochrane’s o’the Craig, Strathaven (14.79a) and Conwy Castle (14.66a) on this European trip.