SCULPTOR WAS CONSTRAINED BY ATTITUDES

This marvellous marble bust of a young woman was made by the unsung Amelia Robertson Paton of Dunfermline. Signed and dated 1860, the bust is portrayed wearing a classical style low-cut wrap, with her head tilted wistfully up to her right. And when it appeared at Dreweatts Auctions in Berkshire on March 27, it sold for £18,000.

Amelia Paton (1821-1904) was born in Dunfermline into an artistic family. Her brothers, Joseph Noel Paton and Walter Hugh Paton, became famous painters, elevated by royalty and with a legacy of work in today’s principal collections. Amelia, however, was denied official recognition within her lifetime.

At the age of 39, she moved to live with her two brothers at 33 George Square, Edinburgh. She started working from her own studio and trained as a sculptor under William Brodie, who left us “Albert” on Perth’s North Inch.

In 1862, she became the second wife of celebrated Perth artist and photographer David Octavius Hill, and went on to exhibit more than 60 sculptures at the Royal Scottish Academy and elsewhere.

She was commissioned to carry out several public statues, rare for a female artist of this period, including a full-length statue of the explorer David Livingstone, who sat for her during the modelling, just prior to leaving the country for his final journey to Africa.

Exhibited to great acclaim in London in 1869, the figure now stands in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh.

Despite the patronage of two eminent brothers and her husband, Amelia still faced the constraints of Victorian attitudes towards gender equality and was excluded from membership of the Royal Scottish Academy.

The bust was sold for £18,000.