Mezzotint portrait of Sir Walter Scott. Original by painting by Sir Francis Grant, 1835.
Mezzotint by Thomas Hodgetts, 1896. Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection
Mezzotint portrait of Sir Walter Scott. Original by painting by Sir Francis Grant, 1835.
Mezzotint by Thomas Hodgetts, 1896. Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection
The Whanganui Regional Museum holds many family collections of objects and archives generously donated to the museum by families.
One group of family treasures is the Walter Hugh Ross Collection, which has objects and papers relating to Hugh Ross of Cokely farm near Marton, and his descendants.
They include small and large donations from the 1970s and 1980s.
In 2017 more objects and papers were donated, including a small pistol-sized blunderbuss, military swords, a New Zealand medal from the late 1860s and an unfinished watercolour of the Cokely homestead, painted by Walter Hugh Ross.
While deframing the painting for conservation purposes and removing the acidic backing paper, I was surprised to find a beautiful mezzotint portrait of 1st Baronet and novelist Sir Walter Scott from a painting by Sir Francis Grant, which now hangs in the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.
The print was engraved by Thomas Hodgetts and published by Colnaghi & Company, an art dealership in St James's London.
Established in 1760, it is the oldest commercial art gallery in the world.
The artist of the original painting, Sir Francis Grant (1803 to 1878), was a Scottish portrait painter who painted Queen Victoria and other distinguished British aristocratic and political figures. He also served as President of the Royal Academy.
It was commissioned by Lady Ruthven (Mary Campbell) and painted in 1831 while Scott was dictating his final novel Count Robert of Paris in his study at Abbotsford, a country house in the Scottish Borders.
Lady Ruthven married Lord Ruthven in 1813 and became a painter and a patron of the arts in Scotland.
Not only was she a friend of Walter Scott, she was also well-connected with movers and shakers in art and literature during the greater part of the nineteenth century.
She reputedly would not allow Grant to touch the canvas after it left Abbotsford. A smaller, more complete version was painted later by Grant.
Scott was nearing the end of his life when he sat for the portrait, shortly before he set off for Italy in an attempt to improve his failing health. Grant, on the other hand, was in the early stages of his career.
This first important commission was entered in Grant's sitters' book under February 1832 as "Sir Walter Scott, painted at Abbotsford in his study, whilst dictating Count Robert of Paris, with his greyhounds".
The original painting is now held by the City of Edinburgh Council.
Watercolour of Cokely homestead near Marton by Walter Hugh Ross, date unknown. Photo / Whanganui Regional Museum Collection
In a letter to a friend, Scott seemed to be pleased with the painting as he remarked, "I have been sitting for Francis Grant, who has won my applause by making a cabinet picture for our friend Lady Ruthven, with two fine likenesses of my gallant hounds, who are all that is worth painting in the subject.''
The donor of the painting was as surprised as we were to discover the print.
It makes me wonder why it was put there in the first place, and what other treasures hidden behind artworks are yet to be found
