Robert Mylne and the first Baroque mural monument in Greyfriars Kirkyard, 1675

González-Longo, Cristina; Jupp, Peter C. and Grainger, Hilary J., eds. (2019) Robert Mylne and the first Baroque mural monument in Greyfriars Kirkyard, 1675. In: Death in Scotland. Studies in the History and Culture of Scotland . Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, Oxford, pp. 147-168. ISBN 9781789972702 (https://www.peterlang.com/view/9781789972702/xhtml...)

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Abstract

The small sepulchral monument dated 1675 to Alexander Bethune of Long Hermiston (d.1672), writer to the signet, by Robert Mylne of Balfargie, was the first to display an elaborated mixture of pagan and Christian symbolism and iconography within a well-designed architecture of classical language. Commissioned by the widow, Marjory Kennedy, it clearly departs from the strapwork decoration displayed in the older tombs flanking it on the east wall of Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh. It not only created the precedent for subsequent, larger monuments in Greyfriars but it also influenced the design of the main entrance to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the most prestigious architectural project during the 1670s in Scotland. Bethune’s monument was subsequently reused as burial by the Spens family during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the inscriptions modified in accordance. This paper analyses the monument in its context, discussing its architecture and influence.

ORCID iDs

González-Longo, Cristina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7522-0380; Jupp, Peter C. and Grainger, Hilary J.
  • Item type:Book Section
    ID code:71395
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    20 June 2019
    Published
    Notes:This is an Accepted Manuscript that has been published in Death in Scotland: Chapters from the Twelfth Century to the Twenty-First Century edited by Peter C. Jupp and Hilary J. Grainger in the series Studies in the History and Culture of Scotland. The original work can be found at: https://doi.org/10.3726/b15882. © Peter Lang AG, 2019. All rights reserved.
    Subjects:Fine Arts > Architecture
    Department:Faculty of Engineering > Architecture
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:07 Feb 2020 12:04
    Last modified:11 Nov 2024 15:16
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/71395
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