Allan Ramsay
Sir John Steell
1862
Carrera marble, with s sandstone plinth by David Bryce
Princes Street Gardens West, Edinburgh
Caught in mid-stride and apparently in mid-thought, the Edinburgh poet and publisher Allan Ramsay (1686-1758) holds a book in one hand and a pencil in the other. Steel seems to have offered us an idealised version of his subject, who in real life was short, and later on fat (see Pittock). (continued below).
Photograph and caption by Jacqueline Banerjee, 2009.
Although Ramsay had once been a wig-maker, and is shown here clad in warm outdoor clothes including a Scottish plaid, he sports a night-cap rather than a wig (see "Allan Ramsay Statue"). This was not Steell's quirk, but Ramsay's, since he wears the same kind of cap in a portrait of him painted by his eldest son, an important Scottish artist of the same name — Allan Ramsay, 1713-1784
Ramsay was revered for his role in the revival of vernacular poetry in Scotland, as exemplified by his pastoral comedy, "'The Gentle Shepherd." He lived locally, having built himself an octagonal house called "The Goose Pie" near Edinburgh Castle, where he and his son followed their separate muses. He was buried in Greyfriars kirkyard. The statue's exceptionally fine plinth by Bryce, a renowned Scottish architect, is also distinctive in style, "featuring small turrets and cannon downspouts" (Disley).
References"Allan Ramsay Statue". Edinburgh History and Heritage site. Viewed 2 June 2009.
Disley, Alastair. "David Bryce: An Introduction." Viewed 2 June 2009.
Pittock, Murray G. H. "Ramsay, Allan (1684-1758)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Viewed 2 June 2009.
Last modified 2 June 2009