3-034-533 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Scott Centenary - Sir Walter Scott, from the bust by Chantrey, 1871. Sculpture of the Scottish writer. A '...Loan Exhibition of pictures, sculptures, manuscripts, and various relics, having some interest associated with Scott's life and works,...has been opened in the galleries of the Royal Scottish Academy, at Edinburgh...A copy, in bronze, of Chantrey's marble bust...reproduces, perhaps, the best likeness of Scott ever made. Comparing it with a painted portrait, Mr. Morritt says of it: "In my own opinion, Chantrey alone has, in his bust, attained that (in this case) most difficult task of portraying the features faithfully and yet giving the real and transient expression of the face when animated." The bust was executed in 1820, when Scott was about the forty-ninth year of his age. The remark of Lockhart upon it is that "it alone possesses the cast of expression most fondly remembered by those in his domestic circle." It is said to preserve, more truly than any other portrait, Scott's "conversational look when about to break into some humorous old story".' From "Illustrated London News", 1871.