Getty Museum

[Mrs. Elizabeth Cockburn Cleghorn and John Henning as Miss Wardour and Eddie Ochiltree from Sir Walter Scott's "The Antiquary"]

Date

1846–1847

Medium

Salted paper print from a paper negative

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> In this plate the sculptor John Henning (1771-1851) and Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn (died 1908), the daughter of the jurist Lord Cockburn (1779-1854), play the roles of Edie Ochiltree and Miss Wardour from Sir Walter Scott's *The Antiquary* (1816). Following the text closely, Hill and Adamson (David Octavius Hill [1802-70] and Robert Adamson [1821-48]) have furnished Ochiltree with white hair, a staff, and a badge that indicates his beggar status. The picture illustrates this passage: "The young lady, as she presented her tall and elegant figure at the open window, but divided from the courtyard by a grating, . . . might be supposed by a romantic imagination an imprisoned damsel communicating a tale of her durance to a palmer, in order that he might call upon the gallantry of every knight whom he should meet in his wanderings to rescue her from her oppressive thraldom." The setting for the image was Bonaly Tower, Lord Cockburn's home. > > The great success of the works of Scott (1771-1932), who is credited as being the creator of the historical novel, possibly explains Hill and Adamson's motivation in creating tableaux vivants based on his characters (see also [84.XO.734.4.3.17](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/99317/hill-adamson-byrne-the-blind-irish-harper-1845/) and [84.XO.734.4.3.18](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/99318/hill-adamson-blind-harper-1845/)). Interest in Scott would have fueled interest in their prints. In 1831 Hill had prepared illustrations for the first collected edition of Scott's Waverley Novels, but it is unclear whether the photographers planned to use their calotypes in a similar manner. > > Anne M. Lyden. *Hill and Adamson*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999), 90. ©1999, J. Paul Getty Museum.

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