'At Auchmithie 1881'. Woman leaning against boat
1881
- Scottish Art
James Cox?s photographs of Auchmithie in the early 1880s bear a strong resemblance to the Newhaven photographs by Hill and Adamson, taken some forty years earlier. This isolated fishing community, to the north-west of Dundee, became known to a wider audience as the inspiration for the village of Musselcrag in Sir Walter Scott?s novel `The Antiquary?. The striking photograph of an Auchmithie fishwife would have been interpreted as an image of one of its characters, Maggie Mucklebackit. Her famous line, `It?s no fish ye?re buying ? it?s men?s lives? refers to the dangers of the fishing trade. This image of the simple, earnest and hardworking life of the pre-industrial age is imbued with nostalgia, whilst also showing its continued existence in the late-nineteenth century.
