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The Scottish artist William Bell Scott (1811-1890) spent most of his career in England, working between London and Newcastle, where he was appointed master of the government school of design in 1844. Although a generation older than the Pre-Raphaelites, he was a close friend of several of them, especially Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and his meticulously detailed style, which he brought both to historic and contemporary subjects, was an important influence on the younger artists.

Bell Scott was commissioned to illustrate a volume of Robert Burns’s poetry that was published in Edinburgh in 1885; this print and its related preparatory study (with a preliminary sketch on the verso), for the poem ‘To Mary in Heaven’, were made as part of the commission. Bell Scott worked primarily as a painter and made few prints over the course of his career, making this work relatively unusual in his oeuvre. Both drawing and print reflect the fine detail and meticulous handling found in his paintings and sensitively evoke a meditative nocturnal scene. Bell Scott wrote poetry himself; the care with which he approached this commission suggests that it was a subject close to his heart.

To Mary in Heaven, 1871 [published Illustrations of Robert Burns' Work, Edinburgh: T C Jack, 1885]

Penkill Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland; Rachel Moss (1932–2010); purchased from her by Dr Douglas Schoenherr, Ottawa (1945–2020), 1997; by whom presented 2019; Gift from Donato Esposito, 2023

From the Baroque to Today: New Acquisitions of Works on Paper, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 23/02/2024-27/05/2024

Illustrations of Robert Burns' Work, Edinburgh: T C Jack, 1885