Lot 203
Hill, David Octavius, and Robert Adamson
Portrait photograph of clockmaker Robert Bryson, c.1843-8, Robert Burns family provenance
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 07 February 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
salted paper print from a calotype negative, 20 x 14.9cm, mounted, framed and glazed, manuscript provenance note dated 1887 pasted to backboard
Footnote
Robert Bryson FRSE (1778-1852) held the royal warrant for clockmaking in Scotland, and worked from premises at 66 Princes Street, Edinburgh, adjacent to Alexander Hill, brother and business partner of D. O. Hill.
Provenance:
1) Presented by Robert Bryson to Isabella Begg (née Burns, 1771-1858), sister of Robert Burns, the poet (her portrait taken by Hill and Adamson);
2) By descent to Agnes (1800-1883; married name Brown) and Isabella Begg (1806-1886), daughters of Isabella Begg;
3) Presented on the death of Isabella Begg to David Dunlop, solicitor, Ayr, executor;
4) Presented by Dunlop to Robert Adam (fl. 1870s-80s), city chamberlain, Edinburgh, c.1887;
5) With Lockharts, solicitors, Ayr.
Literature: Sarah Stevenson, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson: Catalogue of their Calotypes taken between 1843 and 1847 in the Collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 1981, p. 46 (version 'a');
Colin Ford, An Early Victorian Album: The Photographic Masterpieces (1843-1847) of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, 1976, p. 357;
Cf. David Bruce, Sun Pictures: The Hill-Adamson Calotypes, 1973, pp. 180-1 for another version.