The Mystery of the Artist(s)

Inscription on the frame

The oil painting of Parliament Close is undated and unsigned and very little is known about its provenance.  The records of the Edinburgh City Art Gallery state that it was acquired in 1948 from the Whitson Bequest, but nothing is known of its previous ownership. The frame in which it is mounted has the following inscription ‘The Parliament Close and Public Characters of Edinburgh about the end of the Eighteenth Century.  The joint production of Sir David Wilkie, Alexander Nasmyth, David Roberts, Clarkson Stanfield and others.’

An engraving of the Painting was made in 1844 by John Le Conte from an etching by Thomas Dobbie and published by Hugh Paton and Sons. (Paton was also publisher of Kay’s Portraits – see below) The legend reads ‘The Parliament Close and Public Characters of Edinburgh fifty years since.  The original picture is the possession of Robert Bryson RSE.  The Figures painted by Sir David Wilkie, Alexander Fraser and William Kidd.  The Architecture and Landscape by David Roberts and John Wilson etc.’ 

It is absurd to imagine that such a galaxy of distinguished artists should have been involved in the production of the Painting.  The additions of ‘and others’ and ‘etc’ surely indicates that the actual artist(s) were unknown to the writers of the inscriptions and that they were merely trying to ensure that all possibilities had been considered.  Of the identifiable figures in the Square, fifty-one are copies of characters drawn and engraved by John Kay and nine are copies of paintings by David Allan and yet these, whose names have not been mentioned, are the only artists who can be positively linked with the Painting. 

When was it painted?

The possible artists could be whittled down if the date of the Painting could be established. The legend to the engraving of 1844 states that the original Painting was of Parliament Close ‘fifty years since’, i.e. about 1794, and this date can be fixed with reasonable accuracy from details in the Painting.  The Goldsmith Hall, which is intact in the picture, burnt down in January 1796 and was not rebuilt. The shops in the picture and many of the identifiable characters in the Close can be dated from that period, although several of the characters appeared later in the Edinburgh scene in the early nineteenth century.  From the evidence available there are two possibilities concerning the date of the Painting, either it was painted on site about 1794 and some of the details were added at a later date, or the entire Painting was made subsequently from memory or from images of the past.  This second possibility seems most unlikely given the wealth of detail in the Painting which had disappeared by the early years of the nineteenth century. 

Robert Bryson is recorded in the legend to the engraving as being the owner of the Painting in 1844. Bryson was a successful watchmaker and one of the founders of what is now the Heriot-Watt University.  He was born in 1788 and just a child during the period which the Painting illustrates so he would have had scant memory of the Square as it was then.  Although the Square was the centre of watch making at that time, Bryson never had a shop there – he opened his first shop further east in the High Street in 1810 and moved to 66 Princes Street in 1840.  It is possible that he purchased the Painting when it came on the market in 1836 (see below) for its artistic merit or its historic interest.  His ownership therefore does not help to fix the date of the Painting.

Of the seven artists whose names have been linked with the Painting, David Roberts (1796-1864) and William Kidd (1796-1863) had not been born in 1794; Alexander Fraser (1785-1865) and David Wilkie (1785-1861) would have been only nine years old; Clarkson Stansfield (1793-1867) would have been one year old.  John Wilson (1774-1855) would have been twenty, but his genre was seascape and landscape.

Of these only Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840) remains a possibility.  He would have been thirty-six years of age at that time.  His other paintings of buildings in the vicinity of Parliament Square are very similar in style (see below).  David Wilkie, David Roberts and Clarkson Stansfield were his pupils but long afterwards. If it was painted at a later date most of the named artists were quite capable of painting it on their own.

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Other possible artists

Another likely candidate, whose name has not previously been raised in this connection, is David Allan (1744-1796).  He would have been forty years old in 1794 – about the same age as John Kay (1742-1826) and like Kay he enjoyed painting Edinburgh’s street characters. 

David Allan’s aquatint of the High Street

In 1793 Allan made an aquatint painting of the High Street looking west from near his home. This painting, which is contemporary with the possible date of the Painting, shows in the distance, the Tron Kirk, the east aspect of St Giles and the Luckenbooths obstructing the High Street. Seven of the characters seen in Allan’s painting appear also in the Painting – the chimney sweeps, the town officer reading a proclamation, the town drummers, the city porter (in the bottom left corner) and the water carrier.  Copies of other paintings by Allan of the sedan chairmen and the Newhaven fishwife also appear in the Painting – surely evidence of his involvement. 

Examples of David Allan and John Kay’s collaboration in the Painting

THE CADDIE

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IMAGES IN THE PAINTING WHICH ARE EXCLUSIVELY BY ALLAN

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Image exclusively by Kay

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The Painting showing Allan’s figures identified with white dots and Kay’s with blue dots.

Why John Kay (1742-1826) has not been mentioned as one of the artists is a mystery.  In 1794 he would have been in his prime, aged fifty-two.  The Painting shows the view he would have seen from his shop window in 10 Parliament Square, and 57 of the identifiable characters in the Square are copied from his engravings. Kay was expert in miniature portraiture and would have had no difficulty in reproducing his engravings in colour. Three of Allan’s character studies are reproduced in the Painting – the sedan chairmen, the chimney sweeps (tron men) and the Newhaven fishwife. These were copied by John Kay, or his son William, and are included without acknowledgement in Kay’s Portraits – an indication that the two men must have shared their interest.   The two lived within a few yards of each other, Kay on the north side of the High Street and Allan on the south side in Dickson’s Close, and must have met frequently. 

Illustration  Kay’s name plate on the wall of his tenement flat from Allan’s drawing.

In his High Street painting, Allan has included the name J Kay on the front of the second floor tenement in Bailie Fyfe’s Close^[i] where Kay was living at that time. It is most unlikely that Kay actually had his name inscribed there when his business was in Parliament Square – could Allan have used artistic licence to draw attention to a friend and collaborator? 

A possible scenario

I would suggest that David Allan and John Kay were the artists of The Painting. Allan did several paintings in the vicinity of St Giles at the same period. Here is one of his paintings done from the roof of St Giles looking west up the High Street. He would have had no difficulty in painting the buildings surrounding the Square

It is conceivable that Allan was working on the Painting at the time of his death in 1796 and that the work was passed on to his friend and neighbour, John Kay, to be finished.

Kay dated most of his engravings and of the 57 which appear in the Painting, only 25 were produced before 1794 – the presumed date of the commencement of the Painting. The rest were produced at irregular intervals up to 1815 (the last being Lauchlan McBain). Only Kay would have had possession of all these engravings before they were published in 1838. It seems logical therefore to suppose that Kay must have had access to the Painting and added figures during this period. Indications of repeated intervention by Kay are shown in the engravings of Samuel McDonald and George Cranstoun. (See in Characters).

There is evidence that the Painting came into Kay’s possession for in the Catalogue of his possessions which were sold after the death of his widow in 1836, item 32 listed is Old Church with Figures which might well be the Painting.

At the same sale all of Kay’s engraved plates, from which his caricatures were printed, were purchased by the publisher, Hugh Paton. These enabled him to produce his massive two volume Portraits and Caricature Etchings of the late John Kay (1838). It may well be that it was at this sale that Robert Bryson obtained the Painting.

Who painted the Painting and the date of its execution remain unsolved.  My inclination is that it was painted over a period of time from c1794 to 1815 by John Kay and David Allan – the only two artists, who can with certainty, be linked with the painting. Only Kay would have had access to all the character engravings during this period. It would have been very difficult for artists fifty years later to recall the immense amount of architectural detail shown in the painting – details which became much altered over the years. Parliament Hall was transformed by the building of a new frontage by Robert Reid from 1810, the Old Tolbooth and the shops adhering to the walls of St Giles disappeared in 1817 and the east side of the Square was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1824.  Nevertheless a painting at a later date by any one or more of the artists whose names have been suggested remains a possibility.  Unless some hard evidence is forthcoming, however, the identity of the artist(s) and the date of the painting must remain a matter of speculation but I believe that the evidence favouring Allan and Kay is strong.

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^[i] At that time house numbers had not been allocated in the Old Town.  Bailey Fyfe’s Close corresponds to about 87 High St today (about 50 yards west of John Knox’s House).  This was Kay’s address given in the 1792 Edinburgh Street Directory. At the time of his death in 1826 Kay’s address was 227 High St. which is marked with a recently installed memorial plaque.