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Edinburgh characters at St Giles

Holt, Edward P., 1850, Watercolour
Edinburgh characters at St Giles
Edinburgh characters at St Giles
Edinburgh characters at St Giles
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Category
Library Item
Item no
11031
Title
Edinburgh characters at St Giles
Description
A group of people have gathered by the walls of St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh to listen to a man speaking. The speaker is short and stands on a chair as he addresses the crowd. He has placed his top hat on the nearby railings and holds one arm behind his back as he gesticulates with the other. In the small crowd, a soldier wearing a kilt stands next to a woman carrying a basket on her back. In the middle of the picture is a shabbily dressed man leaning on a walking stick. To the left, stand two men who wear hats and have their hands outstretched.

The poet, Donald Campbell has written a poem about the artist:

Ned Holt

In his studio and on stage
At Connor's or the Hallow Fair,
The talent he possessed was rare
And would be so in any age.

But in Auld Reekie, as elsewhere
The Arts were sorely in decline.
The hey-day of the philistine
Caused all our people to despair.

And yet Ned Holt, he paid no mind
To fashions that were like to kill
The calling that he need fulfil;
To paint the portraits of his kind
From Canongait to Castlehill.

And - through his eyes - we see them still.
Artist / maker
Date
1850
Size
30.2 x 44.4 cm
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
Rights and purchasing
Option
Price
Digital FileElectronic file 72 dpi JPEG​
£7.32(inc. VAT 20%)
Digital FileElectronic File 300 dpi TIFF​
£37.20(inc. VAT 20%)
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