Sir Walter Scott
Auguste Edouart French
Sitter Sir Walter Scott British, Scottish
Not on view
Edouart left his native France in 1814 to embark on a career abroad as a silhouette portraitist. In 1829, after touring England, he settled in Edinburgh for three years. During his time there, he produced about five thousand portraits, including this likeness of the famous Scottish author and antiquarian Sir Walter Scott, who penned Ivanhoe (1819), Rob Roy (1817), The Lady of the Lake (1810), and other classics of Western literature. A scholar of Scottish history as well as a collector, Scott is shown at his writing desk, quill pen in hand, occupying an interior in which his collection of weaponry and armor is displayed.