Lucy Ashton, engraved by Henry Robinson after William Etty (1833)

From: Portraits of the Principal Female Characters in the Waverley Novels (London: Charles Tilt, 1834)

This plate depicting Lucy Ashton, heroine of Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), is inspired by the following description: 'Lucy Ashton's exquisitely beautiful, yet somewhat girlish features were formed to express peace of mind, serenity, and indifference to the tinsel of wordly pleasure. Her locks, which were of shadowy gold, divided on a brow of exquisite whiteness, like a gleam of broken and pallid sunshine upon a hill of snow. The expression of the countenance was in the last degree gentle, soft, timid, and feminine, and seemed rather to shrink from the most casual look of a stranger than to court his admiration. Something there was of a Madonna cast, perhaps the result of delicate health, and of residence in a family where the dispositions of the inmates were fiercer, more active, and energetic than her own.' (The Bride of Lammermoor, ch. 3) Although not published in volume form until 1834, the plate bears the imprint '1833'.