In this portrait bust Amelia Robertson Hill’s elder brother, the artist Sir Joseph Noel Paton, plays the role of a successful painter and enthusiast of Scottish history. Paton had bright red hair and was known for his great physical strength. Hill’s professional career began when she was in her forties. In 1874, she became the first Scottish woman sculptor to receive a major public commission for the monument to David Livingstone in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens.