This portrait of Scottish poet Robert Burns is a line engraving, based on a drawing by Archibald Skirving. In its turn, Skirving’s drawing was inspired by Alexander Nasmyth’s famous half-length portrait of Burns – one of the very few portraits created from the life. Beugo’s engraving combines the fashionable dress and rural background of Nasmyth’s painting with the idealised, dreamy features of Skirving’s portrait drawing of Burns. All three works are in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland. This engraving was part of a large bequest made to the Galleries in 1886 by William Findlay Watson, who was a keen collector of prints and drawings.
John Beugo (English, 1759 - 1841)
Printmaker John Beugo was born in Edinburgh in 1759. He was the leading Scottish engraver of his day and made reproductive prints after portraits by Henry Raeburn, Joshua Reynolds and Alexander Nasmyth. Beugo was a friend of Robert Burns, and his portrait engravings of the poet are among his best-known works. Beugo also reproduced the anatomical drawings of artist-anatomist John Bell. He later became the teacher of engraver Robert Charles Bell, who was possibly John Bell’s nephew. In 1797, Beugo anonymously published a book called ‘Poetry, Miscellaneous and Dramatic, by an Artist’. In 1808 he married Elizabeth McDowall, with whom he had a daughter. He died in Edinburgh in 1841 and was buried in Greyfriar's Churchyard.
Archibald Skirving (Scottish, 1749 - 1819)
Skirving was born near Haddington, East Lothian. After being educated locally, he began work as a junior clerk at the Customs Office in Edinburgh. It is thought that Skirving also studied at the Trustees' Academy in the city at the same time, while painting miniatures at night. By the end of 1777 Skirving decided to move to London to work as a professional artist. After some success, he returned to Edinburgh in the mid 1780s before spending seven working in Rome from 1787.
