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.