Art and Identity in Scotland
A Cultural History from the Jacobite Rising of 1745 to Walter Scott

This lively and erudite cultural history of Scotland, from the Jacobite defeat of 1745 to the death of an icon, Sir Walter Scott, in 1832, examines how Scottish identity was experienced and represented in novel ways. Weaving together previously unpublished archival materials, visual and material culture, dress and textile history, Viccy Coltman re-evaluates the standard clichés and essentialist interpretations which still inhibit Scottish cultural history during this period of British and imperial expansion. The book incorporates familiar landmarks in Scottish history, such as the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in August 1822, with microhistories of individuals, including George Steuart, a London-based architect, and the East India Company servant, Claud Alexander. It thus highlights recurrent themes within a range of historical disciplines, and by confronting the broader questions of Scotland's relations with the rest of the British state it makes a necessary contribution to contemporary concerns.

Introduction; Part I. Beyond Scotland: 1. Scots in Europe: 'making a figure' – painted portraiture on the Grand Tour; 2. Scots in London: 'the means of bread with applause' – George Steuart's architectural elevation; 3. Scots in Empire: 'good fishing in muddy waters' – Claud Alexander in Calcutta and Catrine; Part II. Within Scotland: 4. The Prince in Scotland: 'daubed with plaid and crammed with treason' – the visual and material culture of embodied insurrection; 5. The Monarch in the metropolis: a scopic spectacle – George IV's visit to Edinburgh, August 1822; 6. Borders Bard: 'the exactness of the resemblance': Sir Walter Scott and the physiognomy of Romanticism; Conclusion: Scott-land.

Viccy Coltman is a professor of history of art at the University of Edinburgh, where she is an authority on eighteenth-century visual and material culture in Britain. The author of four books including two monographs, an edited and co-edited volume, Coltman has been awarded fellowships by the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale, the Huntington Library, the National Gallery of Washington DC and the British School at Rome, amongst others. In 2006 she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in recognition of her outstanding contribution to History of Art. Coltman is currently the academic lead on a MOOC, a Massive Open Online Course on 'Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites', in collaboration with the National Museums Scotland.