Early Victorian replicas of the Sarcophagus and their legacy

In part two of our study of early Victorian replicas, Dr Sally Foster focuses on replicas of the 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 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 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 activ- ities 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 socie- ties could ‘compete’ and reinforce their social value. Might the two pioneering initiatives in visual technologies be in some way linked? The meetings and activi- ties 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. John Adamson, who became a significant photographer, was the curator of the St Andrews Society’s museum to whom Buist wrote for permission to borrow the Sarcophagus for casting. It is easy to over-exaggerate potential resonances here, not least since the discovery of photography was only first announced in early 1839 and the replicas were made at the end of the same year, but A visual summary producing photographs using not succeed in photographing the we can be certain Buist had of the biography of a lens, photosensitive paper Elephanta Caves, for he would exposure to this new technology the St Andrews and a light-tight box (‘camera surely have sent the images to the both intellectually and practically. Sarcophagus and obscura’), which was the St Andrews Society as he said he We can infer from a letter he its casts height of photographic practice intended to do. wrote from London on the eve at this time. Records of any of his departure for Bombay photographers in 1840s India Other copies that he planned to experiment are exceptionally slight, and the The documentary trail for the with the tropical sunlight in probability is that Buist sadly did original Cupar casts is lost, but

HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 35 they are probably the ones now promote that Society’s interests, aiming to popularize archaeology in St Andrews Museum. Archival donated casts to the new museum and generate nationalism. These and documentary sources, as well of the Society of Antiquaries of now survive at National Museums as surviving casts, indicate that Newcastle. These do not survive Scotland. Finally, in 1853 a at least three further sets of casts but they were probably identical separate set of casts was displayed were made in the period to 1853, in form to the Cupar ones. at the Dublin Industrial Exhibition, all for new exhibitions or displays. A year later, a set of casts was which was the Empire’s successor Tellingly, those that survive all ‘presented by subscription of to the 1851 Crystal Palace Great share the same ‘compromises’ the Fellows of the Society’ of Exhibition. The aim of the Dublin in their form (see above) as Antiquaries of Scotland to the organisers was to ‘illustrate the well as some technical aspects Edinburgh Museum. The context natural connection between the of their manufacture. The busy here was the Secretary Daniel aboriginal inhabitants of Great and entangled image on page Wilson’s project to redisplay and Britain and those of Ireland’, and 35 is an attempt to summarise catalogue the museum in 1849. to this end they created a number in graphic form aspects of the Wilson was developing a case of very impressive casts of Irish biography and trajectory of the St for transferring the ownership high crosses. Andrews Sarcophagus in the 8th to the State; D.V. Clarke has The small collection of material century through to the creation, suggested to me that acquiring the displayed from Britain included circulation, display and after- Sarcophagus cast may have been The Dublin the Sarcophagus casts. Lord life of all the casts. In 1848 the a part of this strategy, through Industrial Talbot de Malahide, a politician Northumbrian antiquarian Walter widening the representativeness Exhibition in 1853, and prominent antiquarian active Calverley Trevelyan, an hononary of the collection. Wilson was with a cast of one in both Britain and Ireland, member of the St Andrews Society attempting to establish a national of the Irish high was the chair of the Fine Arts who had affirmed his eagerness to museum of archaeology and crosses to the fore Committee of the exhibition. President of the Archaeological Institute, one of his secretaries, the energetic Albert Way was familiar with Daniel Wilson and his work in the Edinburgh Museum. Wilson’s 1851 The Archaeology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland had first brought the Sarcophagus to serious antiquarian attention. John C. Deane, one of the Dublin exhibition’s Assistant Secretaries had visited Edinburgh, Kirkcaldy, Dundee and Stirling seeking objects to cast, and that is undoubtedly when the arrangements were made to acquire a copy of the Sarcophagus. The Dublin casts subsequently migrated to what is now the National Museum of Ireland, but their present whereabouts are unknown.

Legacies The pewter replicas that George Buist caused to be made of the Norrie’s Law hoard provided their manufacturer with the opportunity to make silver versions of several of the pieces of the hoard. As the National Museum of Scotland’s Glenmorangie- sponsored project has shown, these skewed scholarship for 170 years. It is only with the critical eyes and the bearing of scientific techniques of analysis upon them

36 HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 Victorian replicas

that Alice Blackwell and Martin Edinburgh’s Trust Academy already informed the Cupar replica and Goldberg, working with Susanna had an extensive cast collection. all its progeny. Only today are Kirk, recognised Robertson’s 19th- The existence of so many casts some scholars (D.V. Clarke, Alice century silver copies. As a result, of the Sarcophagus produced Blackwell and Martin Goldberg) they have redefined the original within fourteen years of each other questioning Buist’s box-like Pictish elements of the hoard. begs the question of their physical reconstruction, suggesting instead Critical eyes and scientific analysis relationship to each other and to that the pieces could have been have also added to the St Andrews the original. Ross’s original moulds part of the architectural fittings of Sarcophagus story, but this time were probably made of gelatine and a building. to the original Sarcophagus. In the would be unlikely to survive long. George Buist stands out as 1990s, we started to question what Did Ross make multiple copies an under-appreciated Scottish a white coat was on some of the that were sold later? At some point antiquary who among other things panels of the Sarcophagus, most were parts of the original casts on blazed a European trail in terms notably the main panel. display in Cupar sold on to another of the creation and circulation Scientific X-ray fluoroescence museum? Were new casts made of replicas of archaeological analysis kindly undertaken by the from the original, or were new material culture that was not of Conservation Group of Historic moulds created from an existing Classical origin, specifically of Scotland in 2012 confirms that this cast? Only the closest physical early medieval material culture. is lead white. Craftsmen used this examination of the surviving casts We gain a vivid picture not just of common inorganic pigment as an in relation to each other and to the an able antiquary and practised extender in paint from the late 18th original sculpture can help us to communicator, but also insights century, becoming more common answer this question, but meantime into the visions, intellectual in the 19th. Using near infrared we can note that the surviving and practical energies of early spectroscopy, Historic Scotland’s casts in St Andrews Museum and antiquarian societies and their specialists also identified that a white National Museums Scotland share web of connections across Britain deposit just visible on the back of some physical idiosyncrasies that and Ireland. some of the stones is gypsum, the suggest they would have been made key ingredient of plaster casts, and by the same plasterer, and either Dr Sally Foster lectures in that there are also invisible traces shared moulds, or one was cast heritage and conservation at of this on some of the stones – the from the other. the University of Stirling.

Acknowledgements The author gratefully The existence of so many casts of the acknowledges the financial support of the Henry Moore Foundation, Strathmartine Trust Sarcophagus produced within fourteen years and the Principal’s Excellence Fund of the University of of each other begs the question of their physical Aberdeen, and the collaboration of Alice Blackwell and relationship to each other and to the original Martin Goldberg. Further reading

ones that we know Ross cast from. Conclusions The Beginning and the End of Ross would have had ready access If we study replicas in detail we the World. St Andrews, Scandal to decorator’s paint containing can appreciate their significance, and the Birth of Photography, the lead white, and we can tell as historic objects in their own R. Crawford (Edinburgh, 2011) someone applied it after the casting right, and learn about the original process, so why would he do it? objects too. Studying such objects The St Andrews Sarcophagus. Quite possibly to mask damage or also invites us to rethink the A Pictish Masterpiece and its discolouration that resulted from his past and present interpretation International Connections, casting process. Another possibility of historic objects, including S.M. Foster (ed.)(Dublin, 1998) is that with its final resemblance the degree to which the creation close to more-familiar classical and circulation of replicas has ‘The legacy of nineteenth- sculpture, the white coating may influenced this in some way, century replicas for object also be telling of contemporary perhaps erroneously. An example cultural biographies: lessons expectations of what ‘normal’ figural is Buist’s interpretation of the in duplication from 1830s Fife’, sculpture should look like. We are, carvings found in St Andrews as in Journal of Victorian Culture after all, within only a generation of coming from a box-like object, 19:2, (2014), 137-160, S.M. the arrival of the Parthenon Marbles and one he thought was a Foster, A. Blackwell & in Britain, of which by the 1830s ‘Sarcophagus’. His reconstruction M. Goldberg

HISTORY SCOTLAND - JULY / AUGUST 2015 37