Rev. Dr. John Bruce, Rev. John Sym, and Rev. Dr. David Welsh
Photography Studio Hill and Adamson British, Scottish
David Octavius Hill British, Scottish
Robert Adamson British, Scottish
Not on view
The painter Hill and photographer Adamson joined forces to produce "preparatory sketches" for Hill's proposed painting of the signing of the Deed of Demission and establishment of the Free Church of Scotland. Hill posed the sitters as he imagined he might want them to appear in his finished work, and Adamson operated the camera and carried out the darkroom manipulations. Typically, they made several variant negatives at each sitting. While some photographs, such as that of Henning and Ritchie, hanging to the left, served as direct models for the painting, this one did not. Welsh, who read the Act of Protest and walked out of the Church of Scotland's general assembly on May 18, 1843, with 155 ministers behind him, here seems truly burdened by the weight of his actions and the turmoil that resulted.
