Object Image

Burns and Highland Mary

Robert Burns (1759-1796), the celebrated Scottish poet, known as the 'Ploughman Poet' and 'Bard of Ayrshire', was born in 1759 into a farming family in Alloway. When he met Highland Mary he was running a farm with his brother Gilbert at Mossgiel, near Mauchline. This painting, one of two paintings purchased by the Trustees of the Hamilton Bequest from the collection of Lady Arrol in March 1928, imagines Burns' last meeting with Highland Mary before her early death.

'Highland Mary' was Margaret ('Mary') Campbell (1763-86), born near Dunoon on the Cowal Peninsula in Argyll. In 1785, she went to Ayrshire where she became a nursemaid in the house of Burns' friend Gavin Hamilton in Mauchline. Burns...

c. 1850
Oil on panel
473.0 x 660.0mm
1748
Images and text: CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection, 2024