Doe and Hope

Description

Containing plant collections from many important locations in Scotland, some drawings, engravings and other contents, the marble paper covered album, bound in grape leather and tied with silk, comprising over thirty-two specimens.

Each specimen is captioned with the location in which it was found in black ink and several pages are dated. Interestingly, some pages carry sketches with specimens attached, thereby linking the plants with the locations they were found. The many historical locations noted include St Andrews Cathedral, The Isle of May, Arthur’s Seat, The Abbey of Holyrood, St. Anthony’s Chapel, Roslin Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Newbattle Abbey, Sterling Castle, Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, Craigforth, Hopetoun House, Dalmeny Park and Conichan.

Specimens include most notably a beautiful peacock feather, ferns, leaves, herbs, and flowers. Aside from the engravings there are also a handful of charming pencil drawings by Anne Georgina Douglas, with personal and humorous annotations by a later hand.

Part of Clan Macfarlane, Anne Georgina Douglas was born in 1817 on the 26th April and died in 1899 on the 28th November, born to parents Charles Douglas, of Kelhead, 5th Bart, 5th Marquess of Queensberry, born in 1777 and Caroline Scott, born on 6th July 1774.

She married Charles Stirling Home Drummond-Moray, of Blair Drummond and Abercairny, and went on to have three children, Henry born 15 Sep 1846, William born on the 12th April 1852 and, a daughter, Caroline Frances Stirling-Home-Drummond-Moray. Anne would have been in her late twenties when collecting these specimens most were collected in 1845 when she was twenty-eight.

With the added biographical information on the compiler, this is a wonderfully absorbing and enduringly romantic example of collecting in the nineteenth century.