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Date: 10 May 2026
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A marble portrait bust of Sir William Armstrong by Alexander Munro (1825-71). The bust depicts Armstrong looking slightly to his right, the bust section in the form of a herm, placed upon a separately made tapering base. Signed and dated on the back. This is one of two versions at Cragside of the portrait by Munro of Sir William Armstrong. The other (NT 1230984) is in fact the prime version, commissioned by the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1860 in commemoration of Armstrong’s munificent gift of a new lecture hall for the Society, and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861. That version was damaged in a fire in 1893 and was presumably put into store, from whence it was presented in December 1977by the Lit and Phil Society to the National Trust, for display at Cragside. However, of the two versions at Cragside, this version is of considerably finer quality than the one formerly in the Literary and Philosophical Society, even when account is taken of damage from the 1893 fire. The modelling of the hair for example is finer. Sir William Armstrong presumably asked the sculptor to make another version for himself, as well as one for his company. That third version is today in the Literary and Philosophical Society (Inv. A.2019.11), given by Vickers Armstrong as a replacement for the version damaged by fire. Munro was evidently proud of his achievement with this particular portrait. Her sent to his friend Pauline, Lady Trevelyan, chatelaine of Wallington Hall, a photograph of the head, ‘which some people consider the best Bust I have done’ (Katharine Macdonald, ‘Alexander Munro: Pre-Raphaelite Associate’, in Benedict Read and Joanna Barnes, eds., Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture. Nature and Imagination in British Sculpture 1848-1914, London 1991, pp. 46-65, p. 62). Jeremy Warren March 2022

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Marble
Artist: Alexander Munro (1825–1871)
Date: 1861

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

A marble portrait bust of Sir William Armstrong by Alexander Munro (1825-71). The bust depicts Armstrong looking slightly to his right, the bust section in the form of a herm. Signed on the right-hand edge of bust at the bottom. Damaged in a fire in 1893; the signature damaged by a significant break and loss of a section of stone. A hairline crack in the neck of the sitter and others on the proper-left side of the bust. Among his many other benefactions, Sir William Armstrong was one of the chief supporters of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (the Lit and Phil) over many years. In the 1850s, he gave the Society a significant bequest of books from the library of his father, Alderman Armstrong. In 1859, when he was one of the Society’s Vice-Presidents, Armstrong provided substantial funds for the construction and fitting out of a lecture room for the Society, which opened in 1860 (Robert Spence Watson, The History of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1793-1896), London 1897, p. 131). The bust of Armstrong was clearly commissioned to commemorate this extremely generous gift. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition of 1861, described as ‘Sir William Armstrong, K.C.B., to be placed in the Philosophical Institution, Newcastle-upon-Tyne’. Munro sent to his friend Pauline, Lady Trevelyan, chatelaine of Wallington Hall, a photograph of the head, ‘which some people consider the best Bust I have done’ (Katharine Macdonald, ‘Alexander Munro: Pre-Raphaelite Associate’, in Benedict Read and Joanna Barnes, eds., Pre-Raphaelite Sculpture. Nature and Imagination in British Sculpture 1848-1914, London 1991, pp. 46-65, p. 62). On 8 February 1893, the morning after an event at the Lit and Phil to celebrate the Society’s centenary, a fire broke out, damaging the building and its collections, including Munro’s bust of Sir William Armstrong. The damage is particularly noticeable on the proper right side around the signature, but fire damage may also have contributed to a general degradation of the surface, so that an area such as the hair appears now very much softer and less finely modelled than it does in the other version of this portrait at Cragside (NT 1231038). The second version was presumably ordered by Sir William Armstrong for himself at the time of the commission, along with a third version, which Vickers Armstrong presented to the Lit and Phil as a substitute for the present bust, after it had been damaged in the fire. The damaged portrait was in turn presented by the Lit and Phil to the National Trust for display at Cragside in 1977. Jeremy Warren March 2022

Provenance: Commissioned by the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1860; exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1861, no. 1101; given by the Literary and Philosophical Society, Newcastle-upon-Tyne in December 1977.

Marks and inscriptions: On bust at front: : ARMSTRONG On proper right edge, towards bottom: : ALEX MUN[RO]

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Marble
Artist: Alexander Munro (1825–1871)
Date: c. 1860-1861

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 250
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

From Wikipedia:

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature. He is known for his Waverley novels (1814–1831), which were, for nearly a century, among the most popular and widely read novels in Europe. He is also known for his narrative poems Marmion (1808) and The Lady of the Lake (1810). He greatly influenced European and American literature.

As an advocate and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with his daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh’s Tory establishment, active in the Highland Society, long time a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829). His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the historical novel genre as an exemplar of European Romanticism. He became a baronet of Abbotsford in the County of Roxburgh on 22 April 1820; the title became extinct upon his son’s death in 1847.

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Material: Plaster
Artist: Andrew Currie (1813-1891)
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 29 March 2026
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Although a native of Glasgow, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman owed his political career to the voters of Stirling, who first elected him Member of Parliament for the Stirling Burghs in 1868. His grandfather, James Campbell farmed Incharoch, in Menteith, but left the area to set up business as a yarn merchant in Glasgow in 1805. Two of his sons, James (Sir Henry’s father) and William founded the firm of 1 & W Campbell, wholesale drapers and warehousemen in 1817.

Both Sir Henry’s father and his elder brother were staunch Conservatives, serving the party at local and national level respectively, but it was as a Liberal candidate that Sir Henry successfully contested the Stirling Burghs in 1868. Under the terms of the will of a maternal uncle, he assumed the additional name of Bannerman in 1872, and it was as Henry Campbell-Bannerman that he held several important posts, culminating in that of Prime Minister from 1905 until his death in 1908. In 1892, by then Sir Henry, he received the Freedom of Stirling, and one of his generous gifts to the town was the Observatory of the High School of Stirling.

The sculptor of this portrait bust was also an artist. Montford studied at Lambeth and also the Royal Academy Schools. He was appointed to the post of Modelling Master at Chelsea in 1898, and became a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1904.

He exhibited at the Glasgow Institute, Royal Academy and the R.B.A.

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Material: Marble
Artist: Paul Raphael Montford (1868-1938)
Date: 1910

Image Details
Date: 29 March 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
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Licensing: Image of a Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum asset. This image cannot be licensed.

The Reverend Hugh Heugh was for fifteen years minster of what is now Viewfield Church in Stirling, A son of the manse himself, he was ordained in August 1806 as a colleague (assistant) to his father, the Reverend John Heugh.

The original church on the present site was built in 1752, its congregation drawn partly from Erskine Church after the Breach of 1747 over the Burgher Oath, partly from parishioners from Logie and St Ninians. John Heugh held the first charge until he was over seventy, when a ‘colleague” the Reverend Thomas Dick was appointed. Mr Dick’s stay was short lived, and John Heugh’s son Hugh was appointed in 1806, succeeding his father in 1810 on the latter’s death.

He remained at Viewfield for fifteen years, when he was called to Regent Place Church, Glasgow. He died in 1846.

The Reverend Hugh Heugh had been awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvannia in 1831, an award he dismissed as “a mere shoulder tinsel knot”. A prolific writer on ecclesiastic themes, he was active in church politics until his death.

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Material: Marble
Artist: Patric Park (1811–1855)
Date: 1854

Image Details
Date: 29 March 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
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Archibald Wishart owned property in the parish of St Ninians, including the farm of Drum, and Earlsburn House.

A lawyer by profession, he was thought to have been a close friend of Thomas Stuart Smith, founder of the Smith Art Gallery and Museum. In the course of his career he became a Writer to the Signet, and Assistant Keeper of the Register of the Sasines. Sasines are documents recording the transfer of property, so it may have been at this point that he met Thomas Stuart Smith, during Smith’s search for evidence of his claim to Glassingall House in Dunblane.

Wishart died in 1853, and his widow later remarried, becoming Mrs George May: She outlived her second husband also, and died in 1898 at the age of 85. She bequeathed this marble bust of Archibald Wishart to the Smith, surely an appropriate home for this man of the law.

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Material: Marble
Artist: Unknown artist
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 29 March 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 320
Licensing: Image of a Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum asset. This image cannot be licensed.

George Harvey was born to Elizabeth Jeffrey, wife of clockmaker George Harvey, at 59 Main Street, St. Ninians, in February 1806, but the family moved to Stirling shortly afterwards, George senior setting up business in Baker Street.

The Young George was educated at the High School of Stirling, then apprenticed to a local bookseller, McLaren of Bow Street.

His artistic gifts were already evident and he left Stirling when he was 18 to attend classes at the Trustees Academy in Edinburgh, established specifically for tradesmen to obtain instruction in artistic design. Harvey thrived in this atmosphere, studying under leading artists of the day, and eventually setting up the Scottish Academy, later the Royal Scottish Academy. He was elected to the R.S.A in 1829, becoming President between 1854-76, and received a knighthood in 1867. A history painter who favoured Scottish and covenanting subjects, his works are in many Scottish galleries, but the character sketches for them are owned by the Stirling Smith.

The Sculptor of this bust is Amelia Paton, who was a leading figure in the Scottish art establishment in the late 19th century.

Two of her brothers were leading painters; Sir Joseph Noel Paton and Waller Hugh Paton.

Amelia married the pioneer photographer D. O. Hill, and as was the convention of the period, she signed her works as Mrs D.O, Hil.

Her most important public works include the statue of Sir David Livingstone, Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh (1876), the bust of Livingstone for the National Wallace Monument, and her statue of Robert Burns, Dumfries, 1882.

Amelia contributed seven of her own works to the opening of the Stirling Smith in 1874.

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Material: Marble
Artist: Amelia Paton (1820-1904)
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 29 March 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 320
Licensing: Image of a Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum asset. This image cannot be licensed.

John Macfarlane was a Stirling man who made his fortune in Manchester in textile manufacture and export, and in property development. He retired in 1845 to Bridge of Allan and bought the Coneyhill Estate, where he feued the ground to build villas.

He used his fortune to promote the arts and education, and was an ardent supporter of every institution that promoted the welfare of the working classes.

He began a Free Library and Reading Room in Stirling in 1854, endowing it with £1900 worth of stocks and shares in railway and gas companies, and provided several thousand of his own books on art, science, history and biography. The Macfarlane Free Library was moved to the Smith in 1881, together with his antiquities collection. In 1904, it was moved again to the new Caregie Library (now Central Library) in Stirling.

He commissioned from Italy and France, a collection of casts of Roman and Grock antiquities, hoping to found a School of Design in Stirling The Stirling School of Art ceased to function in 1875.

In 1843, a Museum Hall was built for the casts in Bridge of Allan.

Macfarlane’s collection of stuffed birds and animals was also exhibited here.

Few had seen the Australian animals he exhibited in 1861, other than as engravings in books. Admission for tourists was a shilling, and for school children, three pence. The Museum Hall was part of Victorian tourism in Bridge of Allan.

In 1886-7, Macfarlane’s Trustees, working with architect William Simpson of Stirling, constracted a grand new Muscum Hall, in the Romanesque style, to house the main collection and provide a grand concert hall for the people of Stirlingshire The museum collection was discarded in 1936, but Museum Hall continued as a focal point for the social and cultural life of the district until its closure, following, subsidence, in 1979 Many famous musicians and orchestras performed there, the Beatles played in Museum Hall 5 Jannary 1963

Currently the building is up for sale for redevelopment as housing, but the Council and the Court of Session require that the facade be retained and restored

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling
Material: Marble
Artist: Holme Cardwell (1813–1895)
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 29 March 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Born in Findo Gask in Strathearn, Lawrence Macdonald spent most of his long career in Rome. His clients were Scottish aristocratic tourists stopping in Rome as part of the ‘Grand Tour’ across Europe.

From Wikipedia:

Lawrence Macdonald sometimes Laurence Macdonald (15 February 1799 – 4 March 1878) was a Scottish sculptor.

Macdonald was born on 15 February 1799 at Findo Gask in Perthshire, Scotland to Margaret Morison, a nurse, and Alexander Macdonald, a violinist.

He was apprenticed as a stonemason with Thomas Gibson, who was then building the Murray Royal Asylum, outside Perth. Around this time he was also commissioned by Robert Graeme, the laird of Garvock to carve a coat of arms on the front of Garvock House. Macdonald then travelled to Edinburgh with a letter of introduction from Graeme to the architect James Gillespie Graham. On 26 February 1822 he entered the Trustees’ Academy, Edinburgh. During this time he also worked as a decoratorative carver for Gillespie Graham.

In late 1822 he travelled to France with the Oliphant family of Gask. He then went to Rome where he set up a workshop and remained for the next three years. While there he executed several busts, among others that of the John Murray, 4th Duke of Atholl. In 1823, along with Gibson, Severn, and other artists, he founded the British Academy of Arts in Rome, of which he continued as a trustee until his death.

He returned to Edinburgh in 1826 and exhibited work at the Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts. He also produced busts of Professor John Wilson and George Combe, the phrenologist and founder of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, for which MacDonald produced work.

In 1829, he sent his bust of John Marshall, MP, to the Royal Academy, and he was a frequent contributor to the succeeding exhibitions. In the autumn of 1829, he exhibited in the Royal Institution, Edinburgh, his colossal group of ‘Ajax bearing the dead body of Patroclus and combating ‘an warrior’ and other works; and he was second to his friend Charles Maclaren, editor of The Scotsman in his bloodless duel with Dr. James Browne, editor of the Caledonian Mercury, fought near Edinburgh in November 1829, which arose partly out of an article in the Mercury (6 November) on Macdonald’s works and the Scotsman’s criticisms upon them. In the same year he was elected a member of the Scottish Academy, where in 1832, he exhibited several busts, including those of John Gibson Lockhart and the Earl of Erroll; but he seldom contributed here, and resigned his membership in 1858. He appeared in the list of honorary members in 1867. At this time he is shown as living at 10 Cumberland Street in Edinburgh’s Second New Town.

In 1832 he returned to Rome, where he occupied a leading position as a sculptor, chiefly producing portrait busts, aided by his elder brother, John, and his son, Alexander. His bust of Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope, is now at Chevening, Kent, and a copy is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

He also executed busts of Walter Scott (1831), Fanny Kemble, and Sir David Baird. and James Gillespie Graham. Among his ideal works are ‘A Girl and a Carrier Pigeon,’ (1835), and ‘Eurydice,’ (1849). His ‘Ulysses recognised by his dog,’ shown in the Paris Exhibition of 1855, was much admired, and became the property of Lord Kilmorey.

He died in Rome on 4 March 1878.

Several sculptors trained under him, including William Brodie.

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Perth Museum, Perth
Material: Marble
Artist: Lawrence Macdonald (1799 – 1878)
Date: 1844

Image details
Date: 31 January 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/97s
ISO: 100
Licensing: Image of a Perth Museum asset. This image cannot be licensed.