Ae fond sis! Burns’ loved ones...caught on camera 170 years ago
HE was Scotland’s Ploughman Poet, a writer of such talent that his birth is celebrated around the world every year.
But on his anniversary yesterday, it wasn’t only Robert Burns who was the centre of attention.
Instead the Bard had to share the spotlight with his youngest sister Isabella Begg and his youngest son, Lieutenant Colonel James Glencairn Burns.
Rare portraits of the pair will feature in an exhibition showcasing work by photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
Burns died in 1796, well before photography had been established, and the two portraits are thought to have been taken between 1843 and 1847.
Mrs Begg’s portrait shows an elderly woman clad in furs and a white bonnet.
Resemblance to her older brother is said to be uncanny and gives an idea of what Burns may have looked like in his old age.
The Bard died in 1796 aged 37. He was the eldest of seven children for farmers William and Agnes Burnes, with Isabella the youngest, born in 1771. However, she was widowed early and raised nine children while teaching in East Lothian before returning to Ayr in 1843.
A Scottish National Galleries spokesman said: ‘There was a striking resemblance between the two. Through this vivid portrait of Burns’s sister we get an idea of how he might have looked in old age.
‘In later years Isabella lived in a cottage where she lived almost as a monument to her brother, entertaining hordes of visitors.’
After a distinguished military career, Lt Col Burns served as a judge and in retirement lived between London and Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Anne Lyden, international photography curator at the National Galleries of Scotland, said: ‘Hill and Adamson offer us a direct connection with the Bard.
‘We tend to think of him as a legendary figure from the distant past, yet these photos of his relatives remind us he was a real person, of flesh and blood – A Man’s a Man for a’ that.’
The photographs will be on show in A Perfect Chemistry: Photographs by Hill and Adamson, from May 27 until October 1.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people yesterday viewed a 226-year-old handwritten manuscript of Ae Fond Kiss, one of the Bard’s bestknown songs, on display for two hours only – to protect it from light – in Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.
The song was sent to a friend, Agnes ‘Nancy’ McLehose before she left for the Caribbean. The pair’s friendship ended in 1791 when she rekindled her marriage.
Dr Ralph McLean, manuscripts curator at the National Library, said: ‘We are pleased to be able to offer the opportunity to see the original version Burns composed.’