Charity [Verso: Slight Sketches of Houses]
![David Allan, Charity [Verso: Slight Sketches of Houses]](https://www.nationalgalleries.org/sites/default/files/styles/postcard/public/externals/88682.jpg?itok=km-qMG4h)
About this artwork
The tattered blue cloak and pewter badge worn by this man identify him as a King’s Bedesman, or Blue-Gown. The bonnet in his hand suggests that he was an army veteran. The Bedesmen were licensed to ask for alms (beg), by royal appointment. A new member was created on the monarch’s birthday each year and they were a prominent presence in late 18th-century Edinburgh. Allan published an etching after this work, from which the title Charity is derived
Published October 2023
-
artist:David Allan (1744 - 1796) Scottish
-
title:Charity [Verso: Slight Sketches of Houses]
-
date created:About 1785
-
materials:Pen, black ink and watercolour with traces of pencil on paper, laid down onto Allan's own mount
-
measurements:24.90 x 18.80 cm
-
object type:
-
credit line:David Laing Bequest to the Royal Scottish Academy transferred 1910
-
accession number:D 397
-
gallery:
-
subject:
David Allan
David Allan
Allan was born in Alloa, on the River Forth, and attended the Foulis Academy in Glasgow for seven years. In 1767 he moved to Rome, where he lived for ten years; this was the most successful period of his life. In Rome, Allan painted ambitious historical pictures, portraits, caricatures and genre...
