Sir John Watson Gordon (1788-1864)
Portrait of Sir Walter Scott
1830
Wetmore Print Collection, Connecticut College
FW-0068

This portrait depicts Sir Walter Scott, a highly celebrated writer in his lifetime, and is an example of Scottish nationalism and Romanticism in the mid 19th century. Scott’s books reveal his Romantic imagination and a love of the Gothic. In an Enlightened era replete with industrialization and scientific rationalization, Romantic writers focused on the misty past. Scott often wrote nostalgically about Scottish history to reinforce dissolving geopolitical boundaries, with many novels’ plots anchored on the Union of 1707. While Gordon’s portrait is relatively unprovocative in form, when viewed in the context of these movements, it tells a narrative vital to understanding this century.