|
|
Home | Corson
Collection | Biography | Works | Image
Collection | Recent
Publications | Correspondence | Forthcoming
Events | Links | E-texts | Contact
William Nicholson's Portraits
of Sir Walter Scott (1816-17)
 William
Nicholson painted at least three watercolour portraits
of Scott. Varying only slightly, these presumably stem
from the
same sitting, of which, unfortunately, no record remains. The
most detailed version was exhibited in Edinburgh 1816. It shows
Scott in three-quarter
face turned
to
the left. Seated
on a chair,
he
wears a black
coat
and waistcoat,
with
white
shirt and neckcloth. Scott's dog Maida, who was acquired
in April 1816, sits in the foreground. In the background,
there are targes
and a curtain. This painting remained in the hands of Nicholson's
descendants until 1932 when it was purchased by the Scottish
National Portrait Gallery. The Gallery also owns a variant
in pencil and watercolour purchased from the descendents of
Scott's friend William Erskine, Lord Kinedder, in 1928. Although
this picture bears no date, it appears to have been obtained
by Erskine in 1817. This version omits
Maida.
As a consequence, Scott's left arm dangles over the back of
the
chair,
the
lower
part
of his waistcoat is altered, his right arm is lowered so that
the hand is no longer shown, and the background is blank. A
very similar version from the collection
of Lord Young, entirely in watercolour, was exhibited
at the R.S.A. in 1880. Its current location is unknown. The
Dictionary of National Biography states that a further variant
is to be found at Abbotsford, but Francis Russell could find
no trace of it. None of these portraits appears ever to have
been engraved. Click
on the thumbnail, above right, however, to see a photogravure of
the Erskine Family variant, published in an American edition
of
Lockhart's
Life (1902).
| In 1817 Nicholson etched a portrait of Scott
which was published in 1818 in his Portraits
of Distinguished Living Characters of Scotland. He worked
from a drawing of his own which clearly stemmed (directly or
indirectly) from the same sitting that produced the watercolour
portraits. It strongly resembles the first of the portraits
described above, but Maida has been moved slightly to the right,
making more of Scott's waistcoat visible. Click on the thumbnail,
right, to see a full-size image. Two further engravings of
this image were subsequently made, by James Thomson and Robert
Hicks; click here to see Thomson's
version. |
|
Bibliography
In addition to the source below, this page
draws on unpublished research by James C. Corson.
- Russell, Francis. Portraits
of Sir Walter Scott: A Study of Romantic Portraiture (London:
The Author, 1987)
Back to Index
Last updated: 10-June-2005
© Edinburgh University Library
|
|
