A PLASTER PORTRAIT BUST BY DAVID WATSON STEVENSON (SCOTTISH 1842–1904)
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Auction: Day 1: Wednesday 20 August - Lots 1 - 296
Description
plaster maquette, signed to reverse D.W. STENSON R.S.A./ SC
Dimensions
41cm high, 25cm wide, 13cm deep
Footnote
Note: David Watson Stevenson (1842-1904) was a Scottish sculptor, having trained at the Trustee's Academy in Edinburgh, as well as alongside William Brodie, with whom he served an 8 year apprenticeship during the 1860s. His most famous work is arguably that of William Wallace, a bronze rendering completed in 1869 on the Wallace Monument in Stirling, but he also produced figures of Mary, Queen of Scots, James VI of Scotland and Robert Tannahill, to name but a few. The marble version of this portrait bust of Robert Louis Stevenson is held at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and depicts him as a dreamer deep in thought. This plaster version may have been a maquette for the final marble bust.