Art print featuring artwork Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth, part of the National Galleries of Scotland collection.
Art print paper size 28 x 35.6 cm, image size 22 x 30 cm plus white border.
Nasmyth painted this long after his friend's death, basing the image on his well-known head and shoulders portrait of Burns. In this idealised scene he has placed the poet in front of the Auld Brig o' Doon at Alloway in Ayrshire, close to where Burns grew up.
It is said that Nasmyth conceived of this particular pose during a walk out from Edinburgh to Roslin early one morning, when he sketched Burns while the latter was admiring the beauty of the scene. Despite its modest size, this painting became the inspiration for many statues of the poet around the world.
Burns and Nasmyth had become good friends, having been introduced to one another in Edinburgh by a mutual patron, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton. Nasmyth, pleased to have recorded Burns' likeness convincingly, decided to leave the painting in a slightly unfinished state.
Alexander Nasmyth (9 September 1758 – 10 April 1840) was a Scottish portrait and landscape painter, a pupil of Allan Ramsay.
