Fingask Castle Subscription Mural

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The Fingask Subscription Mural, at Fingask Castle is one of the contemporary visual wonders of Tayside, Scotland.

Fingask castle is home to a subscriptive and accretive mural by Ivan Govorkov and Lena Gubanova of St. Petersburg. The ongoing picture is designed partly to raise money for the Fingask Follies, a charity with an annual and festive music revue.

Lena Gubanova, Andrew Threipland and Ivan Govorkov, Spring 2008

The five year old wall painting, which in the main measures 180 by 100 inches, is added to each spring and now has already nearly 60 objects, including 35 portraits. The painting features portraits of Follies patrons: Sir James Cayzer, Bt; Vicky Jardine Patterson; Claire Enders; Heloise Thomson; Chic Murray; a cat, Harry Wood, (sponsored by Alexander McCall Smith); Earl Waldegrave; Richard Marner; Sir Mark and Lady (Judy) Moody-Stuart (he is a descendant of Alexander Moody Stuart of Rait); and Follies performer Lofty Buchanan. Inspired by R. H. van Rijn's great seventeenth subscription portraits (viz. the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and the The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq) and then by the British eighteenth and nineteenth century continuation of the tradition. This one is thought to be the only active subscription portrait in existence.

Lofty Buchanan, 2008

Subscription portraits, like subcription concert cycles, are means by which certain institutions raise money, from generous subscribers, while producing something possibly of anthropological, historic and artistic value. The original could either be raffled or kept by the institution. An engraved copy of the original image could be taken and prints made to sell to the subscribers and a wider circle.

Examples of other subscription portraits:

Charles Lees, RSA (1800-1880): The Royal Caledonian Curling Club at Linlithgow of 1853, had 48 subscribers, ranging from Sir George Clerk, Bart, of Penicuick curling club, via Sir Patrick Murray Threipland, Esq of Fingask curling club, to Robert Craig, Esq, of Dalkeith curling club.
Charles Lees, RSA: The Golfers, A grand match played over St. Andrews Links, 1850.
Henry Jamyn Brooks(1865 - 1925): Private View of the Old Masters Exhibition, Royal Academy, 1888, 1889, 60 in. x 160 in.
Henry Jamyn Brooks:Polo at Hurlingham, 1890, 90 x 50 in.
Henry Jamyn Brooks: The first meeting of the London County Council in the County Hall Spring Gardens, 1889, 368x 190cms.
Andrew Festing: The House of Lords debating The Queen's Speech in 1995 (unveiled December 1998), which now hangs in the Lords' Library corridor.

_{Follies Mural, work in progress, spring 2007}

Benjamin Ferrers: The Court of Chancery during the reign of George I', c.1725, 30 x 25 in.
Gawen Hamilton: A Conversation of Virtuosis...at the Kings Arms, 1735, 35 in. x 44 in.
Johann Zoffany: The Sharp Family, oil on canvas, 1779-1781, 45.5 x 49.5 in. (a fine family group, rather than a subscription portrait)

Mural Key, 2007

[edit] References

Robert Chambers, The Threiplands of Fingask, Edinburgh, 1880.
Lawrence Melville, The Fair Land of Gowrie, William Culross & Son, Coupar Angus, 1939 (reprinted 1975), (chapter 27).
Jack Prout, Black Bob The Dandy Wonder Dog, D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. & John Leng & Co. Ltd., London, Glasgow, Manchester, Dundee, 1950. (castle is illustrated on pages 71 & 75, within the story: Clever Bob, The Dog Detective).
Vicky Jardine Patterson (& various photographers), Fun with the Fingask Follies, in Scottish Field, June 2008, pages 64-68 (includes 10 photographs).