St Andrews Sarcophagus and Their Legacy

Early Victorian replicas of the St Andrews Sarcophagus and their legacy In part two of our study of early Victorian replicas, Dr Sally Foster focuses on replicas of the St Andrews Sarcophagus and what these items can tell us about the compromises that were made when creating such pieces, as well as their value to early antiquarian societies n the March/April 2015 J. Drummond’s activities in the earlier 19th replication. It has implications for edition of this magazine drawing of century. This was a period when studying replicas of things in their (vol 15.2) we looked at antiquarians replicas had great value and were own right, as well as integrating how and why, in a marked visiting the used to disseminate information them into the cultural biographies Irush of activity at the turn of Catstane on and stimulate discussion about of the things they replicate. the 19th century, museums in 1 September, 1849 the objects they replicated. An Replicas are original Scotland produced a series of is illustrative of the exceptionally interesting and (reproductions) and distinctive impressive displays of plaster growing interest precocious example of this took things in their own right, with casts of ‘Celtic crosses’. We in things early place in Fife in the 1830s when their own stories, but they are also looked at the trajectory for the medieval George Buist arranged the part of the composite biography widespread production of plaster production of replicas of the St of the (authentic) original. Using casts of sculpture as a whole, Andrews Sarcophagus and parts a hydrological analogy, there is a saw how the production of casts of the Norrie’s Law hoard of value in exploring the full extent of early medieval (post-Roman/ Pictish silver for the museums of the catchment of an object pre-Romanesque) sculpture was in Cupar and St Andrews. and its replicas rather than just a later development, but one Unusually, this is a well- focusing on the spring, the point with its roots in antiquarian documented programme of early at which the authentic original was 32 HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 Victorian replicas produced. With its many multiple with related societies shows both The so-called hallmarks of the success of a copies produced between 1839 and Fifeshire and St Andrews to be Sarcophagus was society and its locality. Networks 1853, the St Andrews Sarcophagus typical of Victorian societies carved by the Picts in were an important aspect of the offers the opportunity to put this in having broad and catholic the mid- to late-8th societies, whether among the into practice. interests, in scientific progress century. It is a composite local landed classes or wider Discovered in 1833 during in general matched by strong monument that survives academic community. While the grave-digging at St Andrews local interests and loyalties, as as a series of finely Fifeshire Society is admittedly Cathedral, the Sarcophagus well as national sentiments. An carved sandstone now obscure, the St Andrews came into the ownership of example of the diversity of the panels and corner- Society is not because through the St Andrews Literary and St Andrews Society’s interest slabs, traditionally its founder and Vice-President Philosophical Society. George and practices is when, prompted reconstructed in a Sir David Brewster its members Buist was a member of this by a talk from Buist in June box-form. Structurally, were actively involved in the Society and also the Fifeshire 1838 about the discovery of the long and short panels introduction of photography to Literary, Scientific and Sarcophagus, Brewster moved slot into corners posts Scotland, immediately after its Philosophical Society, based in that the St Andrews Society that have grooves to discovery early in 1839. To quote Cupar, where he worked as a should add a focus on the study receive the tenons of the Robert Crawford in his history newspaper editor. Both societies, and preservation of St Andrews panels. It is generally of the St Andrews Society, it was founded in the late 1830s, were antiquities to its activities. interpreted as a shrine ‘superlatively “networked”’. at the vanguard of the 19th- Each society quickly founded that is in some way century establishment of county a museum promoting, among associated with a ‘Magnificent Sarcophagus’ and local societies throughout other things, a sense of corporate Pictish king because Borrowing the original from St Britain; it is only in Scotland that duty and shared access. Such of its fine carving, Andrews, having failed to make a few pre-date 1830. Comparison museums were a source of pride: imagery and context a cast of his own, Buist arranged In the 1990s we started to question what a white coat was on some of the panels of the Sarcophagus HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 33 for a local plasterer in Cupar, Mr The surviving Ross, to produce plaster casts of the portions of the Sarcophagus, to form a key element St Andrews of the Fifeshire Society’s newly Sarcophagus (top) enlarged and expanded museum: compared to the plaster casts that MAGNIFICENT were made. CUPMS SARCOPHAGUS – […] Now = Cupar Museum stands the sarcophagus, or at least NMI – National there stands its plaster image, a Museum of Ireland fac-simile of the original, complete NMS = National in all its parts, even to the colour Museums Scotland of the blocks – a splendid resting- place for some of the mighty of Scotland’s earlier days […] The undiscovered portions have been very judiciously supplied by the Cupar Society, causing duplicates to be cast of those which are entire; not that there is the slightest reason to believe that any two portions of the stone were alike, where variety was so much courted, but that this completes and exhibits at once the form and size of the sarcophagus, without the slightest tendency to mislead – the fact being noted on the descriptive ticket – as a conjectural restoration would have been sure to have done […] The artist (Mr Ross of Cupar) who has executed the cast, deserves the highest credit for the fidelity and beauty of the execution [my emphasis]. At the same time he arranged for copies to be made of parts of the Norrie’s Law hoard by a local jeweller, Mr Robert Robertson, many compromises, and these from the thing it was intended to and these ended up with the St were probably the decision of exactly replicate! Andrews Society (see History the plasterer. Mr Ross did not Scotland Vol 13.6). Buist intended produce a 1:1 facsimile of each George Buist, ‘man of these replicas for community and piece: he created four panels science’ scholarly benefit, in the very early whose outer faces bear the So who was George Buist, and days of museums designed to meet decoration on the original, but what might have motivated him to the needs of a Victorian public the relative planes of each are produce not just the St Andrews increasingly keen to spend their not correct, the side panels are Sarcophagus copies, but also those leisure time in educational pursuits. reversed, he simply duplicated of the Norrie’s Law hoard? Born The figure to the right compares the long and short sides, and he in Angus in 1805, he was educated the pieces of the surviving added bits that did not exist. Both in St Andrews and Edinburgh and, Sarcophagus with what Buist’s photographs and drawings of Mr after a short career as a minister, reconstruction is likely to have Ross’s reconstruction have made edited newspapers in both Perth looked like, based on the various their way into the literature from and Dundee before becoming edi- surviving casts, those made by the 1850s through to very recent tor in 1837 of the Fifeshire Journal. Buist and those made slightly times. People have tended to use He rapidly dominated Fife literary later. This figure also begins photographs of casts because they and scientific circles, just as when to introduce us to what we can photograph better than the he arrived in India in 1840 to edit can learn when we look at the originals, but the differences do the Bombay Times. He was by all replicas themselves. Creation need acknowledgement, not least accounts an extraordinary man of of the cast actually involved when the cast is different in form ability, persuasion, considerable 34 HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 Victorian replicas energy and wide-ranging interests. Even at a relatively early stage in his career his contemporar- ies described him as exhibiting ‘unwearied zeal in the cause of science’, being the Fifeshire Soci- ety’s ‘most efficient office-bearer’, possessing a ‘zeal […] to commu- nicate information’, and someone who ‘as a man of science “had not wrapped his talents in a napkin”’. After 1840 Buist only returned from India twice, and he is best known for his professional activities there; antiquities remained a side interest. The late 1830s heralded what was to become ‘an extraordinary inventive period in experimentation with new visual technologies’, and of course St Andrews led the way in terms of photography, but we might also argue (in tandem with Cupar) in replication of non-classical archaeological objects for public display. Such innovations were a highly visible way in which societies could ‘compete’ and reinforce their social value. Might the two pioneering initiatives in visual technologies be in some way linked? The meetings and activities of the St Andrews Society, in particular, provided a stage for the key dramatis personae to con- nect and interact. So did Buist’s work and indeed his personal life – he married the daughter of a St Andrews professor, as did so many other leading members of the St Andrews Society.

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