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James Waylen

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"Colonel George Turnbull and sergeant play a strathspey, 1770, New York", 26x32 inches, 1884. The text below includes the Colonel with a favorite sergeant, the solatium [compensation] of a strathspey after a weary day's work. The prostration of the regimental dog indicates the severity of the march, while the approach of the whisky induces the sergeant to beat time with encreased [stet] emphasis.[1][2]

James Waylen (19 April 1810–1894) was a 19th-century English painter. He was already successful as an artist in his 20s, when he exhibited two portraits and a work entitled Marmion Borne Down by the Scottish Spearmen at Flodden at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 1834 to 1838.[3]

Biography

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He was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, in southern England on 19 April 1810 of Robert and Sarah Waylen.[4] On 2 June 1829 Waylen came to the office of the famous civil engineer Thomas Telford, designing London's St Katharine Docks.[5][6]

Working in Telford's drawing office, he made long-life friends with another civil engineer, the Scottish George Turnbull, who in 1838 asked Waylen to travel from London to Huntingtower near Perth in Scotland to paint a portrait in oils of Turnbull's father William Turnbull, who wrote to his son:

Waylen seems just the same unassuming, kindhearted creature as when last here: his heart appears to be in his profession, and he has made more progress in it than could have been expected in the time; we find him very amusing in the accounts of his travels. He has been here more than a week and has made a success in making a likeness of me: everyone who sees it says the likeness is striking.[7]

Waylen had a long artistic career, in that he was commissioned in about 1868 by Turnbull to paint Turnbull's three children together. Later in 1884 Waylen, as a present to Turnbull, painted Turnbull's great uncle Colonel George Turnbull.

References

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  1. ^ Page 387 of the George Turnbull (civil engineer) autobiography (DVD version) British Library, London. A gift to him by the artist.
  2. ^ Ann Arbor's William L. Clements Library Occasional Bulletins January 2018 page 19.
  3. ^ The Dictionary of Victorian Painters by Christopher Wood, 2nd edition page 503, 978-0-902028-72-3
  4. ^ 6 June 1841 census
  5. ^ Page 10 of George Turnbull, C.E. 437-page memoirs published privately 1893: copy in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; and a scanned copy held in the British Library, London on compact disk since 2007
  6. ^ http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/James Waylen
  7. ^ Page 34 of George Turnbull, C.E. 437-page memoirs published privately 1893: copy in the National Library, Edinburgh; and a scanned copy held in the British Library, London on compact disk since 2007