About this artwork
The cottage where Robert Burns was born in Alloway is less than half a mile from the grassy wooded banks of the River Doon. The river is spanned by the Auld Brig (old bridge). Both the bridge and the ruined old Alloway Kirk located nearby feature in Burns’s epic poem of witches and warlocks, ‘Tam o’Shanter’. The bridge is the setting of the famous scene where Tam must cross the water to escape the evil spirits chasing him, or as Burns put it “win the key-stone o' the brig”. Riding his old horse Meg, the pair just make it, but not before the witch Nannie grabs poor Meg’s tail and tugs it off.
Updated before 2020
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artist:
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title:The Auld Brig O'Doon, Ayrshire
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date created:1855
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materials:Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil on paper
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measurements:19.00 x 28.60 cm
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object type:
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credit line:William Finlay Watson Bequest 1881
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accession number:D 2579
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gallery:
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subject:
John Kennedy
John Kennedy
Little is known about the landscape painter John Kennedy, who was active in the 1850s. He was master of the School of Art at Dundee, and he is believed to have died in 1904. The Department of Prints and Drawings at the Scottish National Gallery has five watercolours by Kennedy, all dating from 1855...