Dunfermline’s Greatest Son

11.11.2024

First Study for the Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1846). Courtesy of Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture (RSA)

Joseph Noel Paton – painter, illustrator, sculptor, poet, antiquarian – a man of many talents, but one who has been largely forgotten by the art world that once embraced him. His work, like that of many of his Victorian contemporaries, fell victim to changing fashions.

Born in Dunfermline in 1821, the son of a damask linen designer, Noel came from an immensely creative family. His brother Waller became a well-known landscape painter. His sister Amelia Robertson Hill was a talented sculptor and the only female artist to work on the Scott Monument. Noel himself became Limner to Queen Victoria in 1866 and was knighted in 1867. His paintings were viewed by thousands when first displayed in the Edinburgh galleries of his dealers or exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy. He was friends with many of the ‘influencers’ of his day - Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, John Ruskin, Mary Shelley, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, (which he had once been invited to join).

Joseph Noel Paton – An Artist’s Life brings together over 80 oil paintings, sketches, book illustrations and personal objects. It sheds new light on his work by exploring his personal life, especially his devotion to his wife and his eleven offspring, and the effect this had on his creative output. His family often modelled for him, appearing as everything from Martin Luther (wife Maggie) to fairy changelings (children Freddy, Mona, Victor and Diarmid). The exhibition contains many lovingly detailed portraits of family members, including two pencil sketches of his youngest son Callie (Malcolm), who died from diphtheria aged five. There is also a tender portrait in oils of Maggie and their son Diarmid as a small boy, ‘The Lullaby’ (1861).

Noel’s upbringing, his family’s non-conformist leanings, his father’s collecting of rare and unusual artefacts, his mother’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Scottish history and folklore, are all explored. Add to this his love of the natural world and we can clearly see how his style and choice of subject matter developed.

The exhibition includes items from our own collections, cared for by Fife Cultural Trust on behalf of Fife Council. There are also loans from several museums and galleries, including the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA), National Galleries of Scotland (NGS), Glasgow Museums, Edinburgh City Museums and University of Dundee Fine Art Collection. Many of the works on show belong to the Paton family and are on public display for the first time.

Noel’s love of Scottish history is well represented. Paintings, such as ‘The Islesman’ and ‘The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow’ (1860) – the latter based on a Scottish Border ballad – sit alongside ‘At Bay’, a tribute to Noel’s Jacobite heritage. A large oil painting, Queen Margaret and Malcolm Canmore’, is augmented by the inclusion of a detailed pencil sketch of Margaret’s sleeve. Both Margaret and Malcolm are interred at nearby Dunfermline Abbey. Also buried there is Robert the Bruce, seen here in sketches created for a proposed memorial to the Scottish Wars of Independence and a detailed pen and ink sketch of the Bruce and his followers after the Battle of Methven in 1306.

Royal connections continue with a rare sketch of Queen Victoria with her six younger children and a bust of her late husband, Prince Albert. This was made when Noel was staying at Windsor in 1862, having been commissioned to create a memorial painting.

Noel’s knowledge of literature is reflected in the inclusion of several illustrated books, such as Shelley’s ‘Prometheus Unbound’ and Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. As well as the books themselves, the exhibition features several detailed pencil sketches for both. Noel is often best-known for his incredibly detailed paintings of scenes from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, including the ethereal oil painting, ‘The First Study for the Quarrel of Oberon and Titania’ (1849), on loan to us from the RSA. One of his greatest works, ‘The Fairy Raid’ (1867) on display at Kelvingrove for many years, can now be seen in Dunfermline, courtesy of Glasgow Museums.

Noel was always interested in faith and belief. This became more evident as he grew older and faced his own mortality. Featured in the exhibition is the oddly captivating ‘Satan Watching the Sleep of Christ,’ (1874) ‘Dawn: Luther at Erfurt’ (1861) which is on loan from NGS, ‘Ezekiel in the Valley of the Dry Bones’, and two small oil paintings, ‘Vade Satana’ (1881) and ‘Vigilate et Orate’ (1884-85), preliminary works for paintings commissioned by Queen Victoria for Osborne House.

Noel also designed several stained-glass windows, including three for Dunfermline Abbey. We have nine of the twelve original ‘cartoons’ for The Last Supper window. Five of these were conserved and framed for the exhibition and, at over two metres in height, offer a stunning insight into the stained-glass process. There are also original pencil sketches for the Great West Window, commissioned by Dunfermline-born industrialist, Andrew Carnegie. In a letter referencing Noel’s work Carnegie calls him ‘Dunfermline’s greatest son.’ Could there be a better note to end on?

Lesley Lettice is Exhibitions Curator at Fife Cultural Trust

Joseph Noel Paton – An Artist’s Life is exhibited at Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries until 9^thFebruary 2025