THEY were images which provided the inspiration for some of the settings of Sir Walter Scott’s poetry and The Waverly Novels and date back to the 18th and 19th centuries.
And the sketches by Scott’s close friend Sir James Skene of Rubislaw were later used as sources by artists for their own Waverley illustrations. Forgotten for 200 years, the importance of the album was uncovered during lockdown by the great-great-great grandson of renowned lighthouse engineer, Robert Stevenson, grandfather of celebrated author Robert Louis Stevenson.
Later this month the rare album is to be auctioned live online by Edinburgh-headquartered Lyon & Turnbull and is expected to fetch between £10,000 and £12,000.
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Described as a “significant artefact in Scottish cultural history” by an expert in Scott – and the relationship between the two men – the drawings were done between 1793 and 1834. One of them features Walter Scott’s final resting place, Dryburgh Abbey in Roxburghshire.
Skene, a lawyer and talented amateur artist, who came from a prominent Aberdeen family, sketched scenes, not only in Scotland, but around Europe, at Scott’s request, in a role analogous to that of a photographer.
Rare album of work by Sir James Skene to go under the hammer
The Waverly Novels author was inspired by the images, sometimes featuring places he had never visited. Skene studied in Germany and was admitted to the Scottish bar on returning to Edinburgh in 1797. Much of his life thereafter was spent in Edinburgh, where he maintained a close friendship with Scott. His travels took him to Greece, where he settled near Athens between 1838 to 1844. When he returned to Britain, he settled near Oxford where he died in 1864.
James Will, a former lawyer, decided to use the time to find out more about the book that had been lying among family papers.
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Mr Will said: “I suspect my grandfather, Alan Stevenson, purchased the album at auction in the 1950s given his love of lighthouse illustrations. However, I can only speculate as an acquaintance has been documented between Robert Stevenson and Sir James Skene, suggesting a possible earlier connection.
"I had always known of the album but it wasn’t until we were all confined to our homes that I did some detective work. Helpfully a great deal of the sketches are dated so they can be matched to events described in Skene’s writings and Scott’s Journal.
“Many of the illustrations can be traced to the friends’ excursions to ruins, castles and other sites. It was absolutely extraordinary to find a collection like this whose existence was completely unknown to academics.”
Pictures were rediscovered in an album
Professor Richard Hill, an Edinburgh University graduate now working at Chaminade University of Honolulu, said Scott called Skene “his artist” partly as a mark of deep respect and friendship but also because of their creative working relationship.
Prof Hill said: "This collection represents an artistic collaboration between one of world literature’s most important authors, and his artist-friend whose work inspired some of the most famous scenes of Scottish literature.”
“James Skene is always referred to parenthetically in Scott scholarship, but I think he must take his rightful place in the creation of a Scottish popular identity: his work is in part responsible for some of the most enduring imagery associated with Scotland.”
Bidding for the album opens on Wednesday, February 24.
Cathy Marsden, a Rare Books specialist at Lyon & Turnbull, said:“It’s a remarkable collection of illustrations which capture the sights and experiences encountered by one of Scotland’s greatest and most influential writers and his close friend. It will be really interesting to see how the bidding goes and be part of finding the drawings a new home.”
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