At an old reddish brown sandstone building at the east end of Queen Street, our guide pointed up proudly at a statue high up on a wall. Many buildings in Paris, I remembered have fabulous statues casted on walls too; and in Edinburgh, at an art museum, it was not an exception. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery houses the national collections of portraits, some 3,000 paintings and sculptures, 25,000 prints and drawings, and 38,000 photographs; too many to even peruse over for a touch and go visitors like us. Built between 1885 and 1890, the building was designed in the Spanish Gothic style by Robert Rowand Anderson. Awesome the exterior may be; it was even more awesome stepping into the building through the main entrance to be confronted with a large frieze painted in 1898 by William Hole depicting an array of notable Scots from history. The statues outside set in niches on the wall were added in the 1890s and were designed by William Birnie Rhind when the museum lacked contemporary portraits of medieval Scots.They were of noted Scots. Our guide has pointed out to us his famed geologist ancestor.
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