2 10 61 http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/6ef4983c4bb5b26a8a23e73113a995f2.jpg de6f6275feb555e6e2475f677b63cb1d Exhibition Item Title Willow Tea Room, Glasgow Category Buildings Description This is a photograph of the Willow Tea Room in Glasgow, which occupied an open plan space at 217 Sauchiehall Street in one of Glasgow’s most fashionable shopping streets. It was designed for restaurateur Kate Cranston by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) while a partner at the architectural practice of Honeyman Keppie and Mackintosh. This photograph of the front saloon was published in the Glasgow Herald shortly after it opened in 1903. Such was Mackintosh’s international reputation that the photograph was also published in Germany’s leading art journal, Dekorative Kunst, two years later. The freestanding structure in the foreground of the photograph houses two tables with specially designed chairs, making four dining place-settings in total. The structure is topped with an elaborate wrought iron flower-stand comprising a broad glass bowl caged within a wrought iron corona. Mackintosh’s interest in unusual divisions of architectural space created open-sided eating ‘islands’ for Cranston’s clientele, providing the occupants with a sense of enclosure by offering a private space within a public one. The photograph provides a glimpse into the general lunchroom at the rear and into the whiter, brighter Salon de Luxe on the upper mezzanine floor. Decorative metalwork, painted wood and decorative gesso panels were handcrafted elements in Mackintosh’s elegant and functional tea room interiors. Wrought iron uprights and rails divide the downstairs lunchrooms from the more exclusive dining and leisure areas higher in the building. Kate Cranston had previously employed Mackintosh to design decorative details and the complete interior for her restaurant at 205-217 Ingram Street, Glasgow (c.1900). The Willow Tea Room was one of a series of notable creative collaborations between Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald (1864-1933). The couple were married in 1900 and Margaret designed decorative gesso panels for a number of Mackintosh's interiors. Mackintosh was born to Margaret and William McIntosh, a clerk in the Glasgow police force in 1868. He studied at Glasgow School of Art (GSA) under Francis (Fra) Newbery and met Herbert McNair whilst serving as an architect’s apprentice between 1885 and 1889. Mackintosh’s and McNair’s work with the sisters Margaret and Francis Macdonald defined a particular aspect of what has become known as The Glasgow Style, notable for its sinuous forms and use of Celtic imagery and symbolism. In 1900 Mackintosh and Macdonald exhibited a wall-and-furniture ensemble at the Secession Exhibition in Vienna, including decorative gesso friezes by Margaret that were later installed at Cranston’s Ingram Street restaurant. Mackintosh’s most well known architectural projects include the Glasgow School of Art (1899) and Hill House (1904) built for the publisher Walter Blackie, but he also worked on commissions in London (Derngate, c.1917) and designed furnishings for clients and exhibitions. The National Museum Scotland’s collection includes a wooden settle designed by Mackintosh with lead panels possibly designed by Margaret. It was made by the decorating firm of craftsmen, J. & W. Guthrie, Glasgow and was exhibited at the 1896 Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society exhibition in London. Mackintosh commissioned the construction of his furnishing and interiors from key Glasgow’ artisan manufacturers, and over 30 firms were involved in the creation of the Willow Tea Rooms. Image copyright Newsquest (Herald & Times) Item Location The Herald Photographic Archive Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interior of the Willow Tea Room, Glasgow, 1903 architects Arts and Crafts Celtic revival design schools exhibitions Glasgow London women craftworkers wrought iron http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/ef8489399d8260a1d9fe03a859d319df.jpg 3000fac149677d31f9b575ab20fa601a Exhibition Item Title Doorpiece, Queen Street, Edinburgh Category Buildings Description 64 Queen Street in Edinburgh’s New Town, built in 1790 for the Earl of Wemyss, has one of the most splendid of town house entrances in the city, with input from a range of craftsmen. The finely carved yellow sandstone at the ground floor level of the four-storey house is carved in a manner that is seen along the length of the terrace, called ‘channelled rustication.’ The stonework at basement level was roughly hewn and the upper floors are finely chiselled. The doorway is framed with fluted columns and an ornamental frieze containing rosette motifs. The iron railings and oil lamp stands are designed to match and were probably made in Falkirk at the famous Carron Iron works, where craftsmen producing fine castings worked along side the mass produced output of gutters and pipes, everyday pots and pans and military iron wares. Skilled metal workers also produced the finely detailed lace-like semi-circular wrought iron fanlight. The latter varied greatly from house to house, with the finer the detail the greater the expense and prestige. External uniformity allowed few opportunities to articulate the individuality or status of the householder. Inside was a different matter, for it was here that most of the costly decoration or materials and variations in design were deployed, from carved marble fireplaces to finely detailed plaster cornices or brass door furniture. The entrance to the house was an exception, giving opportunities for some to make a grand impression. The building of Edinburgh’s New Town, and equivalent town planning schemes elsewhere and particularly in London, sustained armies of craftsmen in the building and house decorating trades. With design expertise at a premium, the most able apprentices in areas like wrought iron working, plastering or stone and woodcarving, commonly took classes at the local design schools that flourished in Scotland. Though styles of housing changed from mid century, the technologies of house building remained largely unaltered and later architect designers, such as Robert Lorimer, similarly drew on the skills of favoured craft workers. Eighteenth and early nineteenth century town planning gave rise to uniform street facades dominated by terraced town houses conforming to an urban aesthetic where ordered neoclassical design predominated. The town house was an architectural type that called on the skills of an array of craftsmen both inside and out and many of the greatest architects of the day, such as Robert Adam, designed such houses and terraces for elite customers. The construction was commonly undertaken on a speculative basis by craftsmen drawn from a variety of skill backgrounds with capital and expertise in building project management. Image copyright RCAHMS Item Location Edinburgh New Town Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Doorpiece, 64 Queen Street, New Town, Edinburgh, 1790 apprentices architects Brass Carron Edinburgh Falkirk granite iron neoclassical Robert Adam stone carving http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/3a681d4ad9a140014777783576cb71ae.jpg b97d6ba455085e8af96a2e0d87066522 Exhibition Item Category Buildings Image copyright Scottish National Portrait Gallery Item Location Scottish National Portrait Gallery Description Hugh Miller (1802-1856) was a celebrated geologist and writer who began his working life as a stonemason in the small coastal town of Cromarty in northeast Scotland. Son of a seafaring man, with uncles who were variously employed in trades ranging from shoemaker to harness-maker, cart wright to stonemason, Hugh was well educated in the local school, but had no ambition to use his education to better his status. He was apprenticed to an uncle as a stonemason in Cromarty, with work mostly comprising quarrying, building and stone cutting. After three years he commenced as a self-employed journeyman working across the Highlands on farm and house building projects during the summer months, going home to his mother’s house in Cromarty for the winter for study and writing in an age when every craft community had ‘its sprinkling of intelligent, book-consulting mechanics and tradesfolk.’ He travelled south to Edinburgh during the building boom of 1824-5, getting employment on a mansion house project at Niddry as one of a party of sixteen masons, plus apprentices and labourers. But the stone hewing was dusty and undermined his health, so he went home again to convalesce before turning his hand to gravestone carving. After nearly twenty years as a stonemason, he retrained as bank accountant in Linlithgow and then took up journalism in the 1840s as the editor of the Free Church newspaper The Witness, based in Edinburgh. During all this time he pursued his studies in geology, natural history and myths and legends of Scotland, publishing on these subjects to great acclaim. He also wrote about his life as a stonemason and on the workingmen and women he encountered. Hugh Miller posed several times for pioneering Edinburgh-based photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Anderson. This iconic and romantic image shows him with a stonemasons chisel and mallet, leaning on a gravestone, with his sleeves rolled up in the typical workman style (though his clothing is that of a middle class man) and a shepherd’s plaid, his usual outdoor dress, draped across the stone on his right. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Portrait of Hugh Miller, Geologist, Writer and Stonemason ca. 1845 apprentices cart wright Edinburgh Highlands masons shoemakers stone carving Stonemason http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/b95040051b68e0e642a79d9f8198d050.jpg 0c7fa3c104cd4509116000a230569190 Exhibition Item Category Buildings Image copyright Tain and District Museums Trust Item Location Tain and District Museum Description This photograph taken by William Smith shows workman carrying out repairs or alterations to the exterior of Balnagown Castle, Kildary, near Tain. Artisans were employed to build new buildings in the nineteenth-century but their skills were also needed to repair and maintain Scotland’s historic structures. The hand-tools in this photograph suggest that the men were slaters or carpenters, both were skilled trades taught through the nineteenth-century apprenticeship system. The men’s ages appear to range from twenty to forty. The man standing at the highest point, though not the most senior in years, was likely the foreman, his status indicated by his starched white collar. Almost all the workmen wear waistcoats and cloth caps, the standard form of dress for skilled manual workers at the time. Some estates employed their own carpenters and road-menders but large-scale building works were most often contracted out to local companies so it wasn't unusual for ‘Notices to Builders’ to be posted in Scottish newspapers advertising for a single firm or contractor to coordinate the work of all the masons, carpenters and slaters required to complete a specific building. Balnagown Castle is the historic home of the Clan Ross chieftains located in the Ross and Cromarty region of the Highlands. The building originates from the thirteenth century though by the time these workmen were employed it had been renovated and expanded by several owners. The rectangular ground plan of the building dates from the 1760s but the Castle was further developed from the mid-nineteenth century. Charles Henry Augustus Frederick Lockhart Ross (1872-1842) was an eccentric character and the inventor of the Ross Rifle. He was the owner of Balnagown in the 1880s and so the likely commissioner of these workmen. William Smith (1824-1906), bookseller, newsagent and photographer had premises in Tain’s High Street from the early 1850s to his death in 1906. Smith’s photographs capture the spectrum of Victorian society featuring subjects as varied as portraits of Tain characters, visiting royalty, and images of craftsmen working outdoors or in their workshops. How Smith took this photograph of a very high turret is unknown though it’s possible he positioned his camera on a lower level of scaffolding. The Balnagown workmen display great confidence in the wooden scaffold that was probably fixed by their own hands. Yet, the dangers of working with heavy materials in high and exposed conditions such as this too often led to accidents and fatalities. An 1881 edition of The Dundee Courier and Argus (17 February) recorded how two slaters fell to their deaths whilst working on the new University of Edinburgh buildings. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Workmen at Balnagown Castle, 1880s builders carpenters Highlands photographers slaters Tain http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/2220c84ab8ba6356313e887e1c461cbe.jpg 8834414376b068c4128f1c0ab7e4796d Exhibition Item Category Glass and Ceramics Image copyright © By courtesy of Felix Rosentiel's Widow & Son Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Sir John Lavery Item Location Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum Description In this portrait by Sir John Lavery, titled ‘Woman Painting a Pot’, we see Alice Groom, ceramics artist, sat in the demonstration stand of Doulton & Co. at the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888. She is working at a bench, painting or incising a large jardiniere, with pots in various states of completion displayed in the background and wearing a tightly-corseted blue-grey ‘New Woman’ styled dress with gold bangles and rings. Though the craft she is demonstrating was typical of her everyday employment the fashionable clothing and jewellery was not. According to a Scotsman newspaper report, the Doulton & Co. exhibition stand at the Glasgow Exhibition was notable for the large numbers of craftsmen and women that were there to demonstrate the different elements of decorative pottery making, all housed in an elaborate Indian-themed pavilion. There were up to twenty men engaged in throwing, turning and molding and several women, including Alice Groom, doing the painting and carved design work to ‘supply the artistic decoration for which Doulton ware is justly celebrated.’ Demonstration stands like this attracted great public interest. ‘The ease and grace with which these pretty artists perform the tasks assigned to them never fail to excite admiration.’ Alice Groom was twenty-four years old when this portrait was painted. In 1881, when listed in the Census, she was described as an ‘artist, painter’ born in Pimlico in London and was living at 3 Auckland Street in Lambeth in a household headed by her widowed mother, a ‘wardrobe dealer’ and two younger brothers, one of them later a tailor. Alice was almost certainly trained at the Lambeth School of Art, which had been founded in 1854 to teach applied art and design to working artisans. The School formed a close relationship with the nearby Doulton & Co. pottery works and from the 1870s had a curriculum designed to train young men and women for the pottery trade. Though there were more famous women associated with the pottery, in particular the sisters Hannah and Florence Barlow, who were also trained at the Lambeth School of Art, pots identified as the work of Alice Groom are occasionally found in antique sales today. John Lavery (1856-1941), the Belfast-born artist who painted this portrait, was also of an artisan family background and was initially apprenticed as a photographer in Glasgow before becoming an artist. Whilst still a young man he was employed by the municipal committee that organised the Glasgow 1888 exhibition as the ‘official artist’, charged with creating a record in a series of paintings and sketches of the buildings and people that caught his eye and were typical of what became a popular and profitable event. He also painted the grand opening ceremony attended by Queen Victoria. He enjoyed a long and successful career and was knighted in 1918. Alice Groom’s later life is not so well recorded. In 1891 she was no longer living in her mother’s household and had probably married and given up her employment with Doulton & Co. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Alice Groom of Doulton & Co. at the Glasgow Exhibition, 1888 design exhibitions Glasgow London pottery school of art tailors tourist industry http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/d61231289e0a267d61d8429dff33e18d.jpg 97f418d8ae99bab319ce96832f3cd21a Exhibition Item Category Glass and Ceramics Image copyright Griselda Hill Pottery Ltd Item Location Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery Description This modern, hand-painted plaque embodies the decorative spirit of nineteenth-century Wemyss Ware whilst depicting its most celebrated decorator Karel Nekola. The painter and ceramic decorator Griselda Hill acquired the Wemyss Ware ® trademark in 1985 when she came to live in Scotland. This commemorative plaque was commissioned specially for Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery where it has held pride of place since the centenary anniversary of Nekola’s death in 2015. Karel Nekola arrived in Fife from his native Bohemia in the early 1880s to take up a post at the Fife Pottery then owned by the Heron family. Robert Heron is thought to have travelled to the Continent specially to secure the services of talented decorators because Bohemia’s craftsmen were highly regarded for their skills particularly in the fields of ceramics and glass. Large-scale floral designs were Nekola’s signature style, including the distinctive cabbage rose pattern featured on this plaque. Its central portrait is based on a family photograph of Nekola in his workshop. He is seen decorating an umbrella stand which was one of a range of large-scale ceramics that were particularly associated with Nekola’s years at the pottery. Decorative jugs, ewers and basins, and ceramic jardinières were popular forms of furnishing in middle-class Victorian and Edwardian interiors, and the Fife Pottery specialised in producing cheerful ceramics that appealed to a broad popular taste. The 1891 census list Nekola living with his wife Isabella and three children at 7 Brandon Avenue, Gallatown. He was a supporter of friendly societies and a valued member of the Gallatown community where he was involved with the Young Men’s Improvement Association and taught gymnastics at the local Boys Institute. In 1915, Nekola bequeathed £150 to the Lily Lodge Free Gardeners, a local branch of The Order of Free Gardeners which was a friendly society founded in Scotland in the seventeenth century and popular with artisans who used representations of flowers in their work - most notably Paisley’s weavers. In the tradition of handing skills from one generation to the next Nekola trained his sons Joseph and Carl who both became successful decorators. Joseph worked at the Fife Pottery under his father until his early death in 1915. He later took his skills to Bovey Tracy in Devon where he and then his apprentice, Esther Weeks, made Wemyss-style ceramics until the pottery closed in 1957. Esther Weeks is now a regular visitor to Griselda’s pottery in Ceres, Fife, where she has passed on the traditional skills and techniques of Wemyss Ware first perfected by Karel Nekola at the end of the nineteenth century. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Karel Nekola (ca.1857-1915), Griselda Hill Pottery, ca. 2009 apprentices design Fife pottery Wemyss Ware http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/e8b4a0aa0a22c12878b31cba342c789b.jpg 3b46ef2c2e580c0d64168edbc3697305 Exhibition Item Category Jewellery and Silverware Image copyright Scottish National Portrait Gallery Item Location Scottish National Portrait Gallery Description This portrait of sculptor and gem engraver James Tassie shows him holding one of his famous cameos in his left hand and a magnifying glass in his right. The portrait is by David Allan, who trained with Tassie at Glasgow’s Foulis Academy. Tassie was a skilled artist who specialised in producing miniature portraits of historical figures and contemporary sitters in various mediums. As well as engraving medallions and gems, he moulded them in glass cameos like the one he is depicted holding here, which were worn as jewellery by elite customers. The making of a cameo involved many stages of skilled hand work. First, Tassie carved the portrait in wax using a series of fine tools, then made a relief mould from vitreous glass paste. That mould was then used to produce the final 3D portrait, again in vitreous glass paste. The three-dimensional portrait was then mounted on a stone or, in this case, ceramic backing before being placed into the setting, usually of precious metals. Originally from Pollockshaws, James Tassie (1735-1799) trained in Glasgow at the Foulis Academy before moving to Dublin, where he co-invented a new form of vitreous glass paste. Tassie then moved to London, an established centre of luxury consumption, where he earned a reputation as one of the foremost producers of portraits on gems and cameos. He made work for London jewellers and wealthy private collectors, most famously Catherine the Great. The portrait communicates Tassie’s status and occupation through his luxury dress and the focus on his hands and eyes. He is depicted as a respectable gentleman wearing a fashionable wig and a smart three-piece suit in a rich red colour with a white linen shirt and neck-tie. His hands are engaged, holding a magnifying glass – an important tool for making miniature portraits, and a marker of knowledge – over a finished cameo. The face depicted in the cameo is reflected in the magnifying glass, and Tassie’s eyes are momentarily drawn away from the glass and out of the frame. The portrait clearly marks Tassie as both an owner and maker of luxury goods. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource James Tassie, Sculptor and Gem Engraver, ca. 1781 Dublin fashionable consumption Glasgow glass jewellers London http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/b8c9e295c443b74236fc83e94cced2e0.jpg 5dd460c539d706e246e942e7af184338 Exhibition Item Category Jewellery and Silverware Image copyright Scottish National Portrait Gallery Item Location Scottish National Portrait Gallery Description This self-portrait of Phoebe Traquair (1852-1936) was painted in oil on a mahogany panel between 1909-11. Traquair was a key figure in the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement and is perhaps its most well-known woman. Her work included jewellery enamelling, book illuminating and binding, embroidery, and mural painting. The portrait shows Traquair at the peak of her career having completed several large commissions and at a time when she was developing her small-scale decorative work. She began enamelling in 1901 using a technique that involved painting enamels onto copper plate, and in total produced over 300 enamelled works including the gold and enamel ‘Love Cup’ pendant designed as a special commission for the architect Robert Lorimer. Born Phoebe Anna Moss in Kilternan, near Dublin, Ireland, in 1852, Traquair attended art classes at the Royal Dublin Society before moving to Scotland with her husband Dr Ramsay Traquair in 1873. She started her career preparing scientific drawings for her husband who became Keeper of Natural History at Museum of Science and Art in Edinburgh. Her early work was produced within the context of her family but after 1885 she began to take on larger works and public commissions. In 1888 she was commissioned by the Edinburgh Social Union (ESU) to produce a large-scale mural scheme for the Song School at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral. This was followed in 1893 by an even more ambitious mural commission for the interiors of the Catholic Apostolic Church Edinburgh. Traquair’s style and imagery were influenced by Renaissance art and her love of illuminated manuscripts. She combined realistic representations of the human figure with symbolic imagery, the latter influenced by her Catholic faith but also by her travels to Italy at the end of the 1880s. The University of Edinburgh’s rare books collection includes a series of illuminations on velum that are typical of her skills and preoccupations in using jewelled colours, gold leaf and fine detail. The illuminations, which depict the medallions for the Song School commission, were bound in green calf leather at Cobden-Sanderson’s Doves Bindery in London. Traquair’s diverse practice made her contribution substantial and far-reaching. Her enamel heraldic plaques can still be seen in Lorimer’s Thistle Chapel at St Giles Cathedral, and her three-panel embroidery, The Salvation of Mankind, which took eight years to complete between 1885 and 1893 and was exhibited in St Louis in 1904, is now housed in the National Galleries Scotland. In 1920 Traquair became the first woman to be awarded Honorary Membership of Royal Society of Arts in Scotland. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Phoebe Traquair, Self Portrait, ca. 1910 Arts and Crafts decorators Dublin Edinburgh embroiderers jewellers Lorimer http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/f0869f9f96dd95024736319b55a16bd0.jpg 0425402cbc37d0eccf4b12ae5054d41b Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright East Lothian Council Archives Item Location John Gray Centre, Haddington Description This photograph of Thomas M. Ross (1860-1937) was taken in the studio of a professional photographer. It survives with a handwritten note that describes Ross's participation in several international exhibitions. Ross's note connects him to the London firm of John Smeaton, Plumbers and Sanitary Engineers of Baker Street and Castle Street, Strand, London, which exhibited Stand no.938 at the International Health Exhibition in South Kensington in London in 1884. In addition to Ross’s arrangement of decorative twists and knots, Smeaton’s stand showcased an 'Imperial Spray, Shower, Douche, Rose, and Wave Bath Complete’, a ‘Tip-up Lavatory Apparatus’, and a Bachelor’s Bath and Lavatory combined with wardrobe’. Such elaborate sanitary fittings are indicative of the novelty associated with indoor bathrooms that were the new innovation that signified middle-class status in housing in the 1880s. Ross’s note says that his work was also seen at the Industrial Exhibition in Edinburgh in 1886 where it was awarded an Honourable Mention, and that it won a Silver Medal at an un-named exhibition a year later. Industrial exhibitions offered skilled craftsmen like Ross an important way of finding new clients and attracting commissions. They were regular fixtures in nineteenth century trade centres and Ross’s eye-catching work must have attracted attention in their visually competitive environments. Considerable skill and sensitive manipulation of materials were needed to maintain a uniform hollow within a contorted pipe. According to Ross’s note, the knot in the centre of this display was made up of a 12 feet length of 2 inch lead waste pipe and the others were twisted from 1 ½ inch and 1 ¼ inch lead pipe respectively. By the end of the century, machinery that used centrifugal force was used to uniformly, and perhaps more practically, shape the forms of domestic lead pipes. Tommy Ross was a well-known plumber and key figure in Haddington society. He became Lord Provost of the town in 1918. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Tommy Ross, Plumber, Haddington, ca. 1885 exhibitions Haddington metal new industries photographers plumbers http://www.artisansinscotland.shca.ed.ac.uk/files/original/20c88e402542cd0d1d8d8abccc0b7cf0.jpg 2e375135098855cbb0afccf6c189e77b Exhibition Item Category Metal Wares Image copyright National Museums Scotland Item Location National Museum Scotland Description A photographic portrait of Robert Davidson (1845-1921), master blacksmith at Woodfoot, near Hawick, Roxburghshire with his second daughter, Mary, stood outside the lodge house and gate entrance to Stobs Castle, dated 1887 according to record, but, from the costume worn by the woman, probably a decade later. Robert Davidson is dressed in his working clothes of heavy stripped collarless cotton shirt and waistcoat, with flat peaked cap and leather blacksmith’s apron over trousers and sturdy but dusty boots. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to the elbows and he strikes a pose typically seen among men involved in the physically demanding metal and building trades, with brawny arms crossed high on his chest and a penetrating stare. The full beard and walrus-styled moustache, though fashionable at the time, add a patriarchal air. His daughter is stylishly dressed in a bell shaped walking skirt and matching jacket, with gigot sleeves, tight waist and a flared peplum. She has a white shirt with stand-up collar and tie. This ensemble along with the flat straw hat is characteristic of the style of dress adopted by the later nineteenth century ‘new woman’. Robert was descended from a long line of Roxburghshire blacksmiths. His grandfather, father and elder brother, all named Walter, were the blacksmiths who occupied the Newmill-on-Teviot smithy a few miles south of Hawick for most of the nineteenth century. A country blacksmith such as Robert Davidson would turn his hand to many different activities, such as shoeing horses, mending and making farm or local workshop equipment and fashioning tools for use by other craftsmen, such as hammers, knives, files and chisels. The Stobs Castle estate, from which he rented the cottage and workshop attached to the castle lodge would have generated much of his work. Though the name of the photographer is unrecorded, he was probably an amateur who enjoyed taking photographs of local people and scenes and was possibly connected to the gentry family who lived in Stobs Castle. Craft portraits of the period showing artisans in their places of work with well-dressed female family members included in the composition are common, but the men are normally also in their Sunday-best, with aprons over good trousers and smart shoes. What is unusual in this image is the contrast between the smart young woman, proud of her fashionable costume and her equally proud and dignified father in the ordinary working clothes of the master blacksmith. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Davidson, Blacksmith and his Daughter, Roxburghshire ca. 1897 amateur blacksmiths dressmakers Hawick joiners photographers Roxburghshire