Lot Essay
The photograph shows William Borthwick Johnstone, William Leighton Leitch and David Scott posing as the monks from Sir Walter Scott's novel The Abbott. William Borthwick Johnstone (1804-1868) was a landscape and history painter and the first curator of the National Gallery of Scotland, William Leighton Leitch (1804-1883) was a landscape painter (who knew Stanfield), watercolourist and drawing master to Queen Victoria and David Scott (1806-1849) was a history and genre painter and Royal Scottish Academician.