John Clerk of Eldin, Photogravure after James Saxon (1903)

The naval strategist John Clerk of Eldin was the father of Scott's lifelong friend William Clerk, sometimes proposed as the prototype for Darsie Latimer in Redgauntlet. Some of John Clerk's eccentries are thought to have contributed to the character of Jonathan Oldbuck in The Antiquary. Photo-engraving involved transferring a photographic negative of a drawing, painting, or object to a metal plate, and then etching it in. The original portrait was painted in 1805.