Scott, Sir Walter - Robert Scott-Moncrieff, of Fossaway (1793-1869)
£3,000
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 28 January 2015 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Pencil portrait of Walter Scott, from life, unsigned, by Robert Scott-Moncrieff, [c.1816-20], 9 x 8.1cm., with worn inscription on reverse of frame: "Robert Scott-Moncrieff, born 1793, decd. 18[69], father of Canon William Scott-Moncrieff, also of Fossaway, died in 1901; father of Susan Mary, afterwards, Mrs Herbert L[unn]; her daughter, Constance Lunn, afterwards Mrs Colin Scott-Moncrieff. Pencil portrait of Sir Walter Scott from life, by Robert Scott-Moncrieff of Fossaway. Given by Robert Scott-Moncrieff's daughter... to George Scott-Moncrieff"; together with 4pp. typed script "An unknown portrait of Scott" by George Scott-Moncrieff
Footnote
Note: A drawing from life of Sir Walter Scott, only once reproduced since it was drawn c. 1816-20.
The pencil portrait by Robert Scott-Moncrieff (1793-1869) was reproduced for the first time, with the essay by George Scott-Moncrieff , in the Scott Bicentenary Issue of Scotland's Magazine, in June 1971. In the article George Scott-Moncrieff notes that Robert Scott-Moncrieff was called to the Scottish Bar in 1818, as an advocate was not particularly successful, and accepted, in 1828, the appointment as Chamberlain to the Duke of Buccleuch. He notes that during his early years at the Bar, between 1816 and 1820, Robert amused himself and his friends by doing drawings of his fellow-advocates and the Judges before whom they had to plead. "These drawings had sometimes an edge of caricature to them, but were often serious likenesses. They were highly praised by no less an authority than Sir Henry Raeburn himself...
During his lifetime Robert would never agree to having any of his drawings published, but, in 1871, a couple of years after his death, a collection of them appeared in book form under the title The Scottish Bar Fifty Years Ago. Sketches of Scott and his Contemporaries. This volume contains one of two drawings made of Walter Scott by Robert Scott-Moncrieff. It is a drawing in pen and wash.." George Scott-Moncrieff states that the original of this picture "now hangs in the National Library [of Scotland]" but the NLS today has no knowledge of this drawing. George Scott-Moncrieff adds "But there was a second drawing he made, in pencil, which has never before been reproduced. It is, I think, the better likeness of the two. Neither drawing is unduly flattering: they are candid portraits made when Scott was still under fifty, Still Clerk of Session, and still the Great Unknown."
George Scott-Moncrieff notes that Sir Henry Raeburn, who painted the magnificent portrait of Scott in his prime for Thomas Constable the publisher, "expressed special approval" of Robert's portrait of Scott, "and on its being remarked to him that the head looked disproportionately high, his rejoinder was that Scott had a story more in his head than any other man. "Most of the artists who painted Scott seem to have made an effort to conceal the extraordinary height of his head, which is strikingly displayed in the cast taken after death" says the anonymous writer of the biographical notes to The Scottish Bar Fifty Years Ago.".
Robert Scott-Moncrieff was of course a considerably younger man than Scott, but the families, notably that of his wife, were on familiar terms. Robert's wife was Susan Pringle of the Border family that built Smailholm, the splendidly defiant old tower which, standing near Scott's grandfather's farm of Sandyknow, six miles from Kelso, proved an early inspiration to the young Walter, in his epistle to William Erskine. The Pringles at Yair became great friends of Scott when he was their neighbour on the adjacent property of Ashiesteel, and remained so after he moved a short way down the river to Abbotsford. Scott wrote of Yair in his Introduction to Canto II of Marmion, and indirectly refers to the [Pringle] boys having left Yair [for schooling in Edinburgh]. Later the family at Yair guessed the identity of Scott as author when he named the pony in Guy Mannering after their own favourite old pony, Dumple."
The typescript also details the descent of the picture within the family to George Scott-Moncrieff.
Russell, Francis. Portaits of Sir Walter Scott. 1987. No. 133, incorrectly stating that this image was reproduced in The Scottish Bar Fifty Years Ago . The image reproduced in that work is a very similar portrait, also a half-length study of Scott in profile to the the left, but pen and wash, not pencil, and does show Scott wearing his robes as a Clerk of Session.
Sir Walter Scott, Bicentenary Exhibition Catalogue, Edinburgh, 1971. B6.
We would like to thank Iain Gordon Brown for his help cataloguing this lot.