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John Kay: A Series of Original Portraits and Etchings

A Scottish master of caricature

Alan Bell
Birlinn, Edinburgh, 976pp, £200,

Bevis Hillier

Tuesday, 18th March 2008

Bevis Hiller on a new collection of John Kay's artworks

I described John Kay’s career. He was born near Dalkeith in 1742 and at the age of 13 was apprenticed to a barber there. He stayed for six years, and spent a further seven years as a journeyman barber in Edinburgh. In 1771 he purchased the freedom of that city and was enrolled as a member of the Society of Surgeon-Barbers. He set up business on his own, and devoted his spare time to portrait caricature. He found a patron in William Nisbet of Dirleton; Nisbet died in 1784 and his heir settled £20 a year on Kay. In 1785 Kay retired from hairdressing and took up caricature full time. The earliest of his dated etchings is a self- portrait, inscribed 1786. He sold his etchings from a little shop in Edinburgh. He etched plates of almost every notable Scotsman of his time, with the surprising exception of Robert Burns. His etchings of Adam Smith are, with the posthumous medallions by Tassie, the only authentic likenesses. Kay died in 1826.

In 1837-38 a quarto edition of Kay’s plates, under the title A series of original portraits and caricature etchings by the late John Kay, miniature painter, Edinburgh, was published in monthly numbers by Hugh Paton of Edinburgh, who styled himself ‘Carver and Gilder to Her Majesty Queen Victoria and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent’. With the caricatures Paton printed a commentary on the figures depicted, based partly on anecdotes collected by Kay’s widow, and put into good shape by an experienced journalist, James Paterson. No fewer than 526 subscribers were attracted, and more than 860 sets were sold.

It is this mammoth work that the present publishers have reissued, in two huge volumes. It is a heroic enterprise. The copy reproduced is an original subscription copy that belonged to the second Viscount Melville — the son of Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who is caricatured in volume one. The second Viscount was a school friend of Walter Scott. He was First Lord of the Admiralty under Lord Liverpool and responsible for the ‘management’ of Scotland.

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