Casket believed to have belonged to Mary, Queen of Scots to come to the Stirling Smith

A silver casket believed to have been owned by Mary, Queen of Scots and which was acquired by National Museums Scotland in 2022 has undergone fresh conservation work ahead of going on tour to Kirkcudbright and Stirling. An iconic piece of Scotland’s national heritage, the casket will go on display

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Significant Stirling Smith Artworks on Display at The Royal Academy

The Stirling Smith is delighted to have two major works by founder Thomas Stuart Smith, represented at the Royal Academy exhibition ‘Entangled Pasts, 1768 – now: Art, Colonialism and Change’. Thomas Stuart Smith was a Scottish artist, abolitionist, visionary who regularly submitted his own paintings to Royal Academy exhibitions from 1865.

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The Stirling Smith is pleased to host a series of events celebrating the diverse voices of Stirling. For many years visitors have been enjoying our museum display, ‘The Stirling Story’, which provides visitors with a history of Stirling from prehistory to the twentieth century through The Smith’s collection. Visitors can

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Jane Anne Wright’s Watercolours of Stirling

The Smith is proud to house a collection of watercolours by Jane Anne Wright (1842-1922). Wright was born into a well-connected family and on her visits to wealthy Stirling families, she often painted their estates. This week on social media, we have explored just some of her watercolours of greater

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The Smith hosts The Guardian’s Great British Art Quiz

While museums have been closed due to the coronavirus, the Guardian has set up a weekly art quiz so people can explore and engage with art collections across the UK from the comfort of their own home.  This week, the quiz is all about artwork in our very own collection. 

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The Stirling Wolf

Have you ever wandered around Stirling and noticed wolves decorating many parts of the city? The reason for this is that the wolf is a symbol of Stirling and has been since the early medieval period. Long ago, in the 9th century, the small town of Stirling found itself on

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The Valley Cemetery

This photograph, taken by Stirling photographer Alexander Crowe, shows the cemetery in its early years.  The layout was completed in 1857 and the first burial took place then. The scheme was devised by Charles Rogers, promoter of the Wallace Monument and financed by seedsman William Drummond.  ‘The Valley’ was a

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Stirling by Horatio MacCulloch

This is one of three works by the eminent Scottish landscape painter Horatio MacCulloch (1805 – 1867) in the Smith collections. The view looks towards the old town of Stirling and the castle on the rock from the hills at Bannockburn. The bottom half of the composition is seen in

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Lunchtime, 1984

A feature of the Painting Stirling exhibition at the Stirling Smith is the work of the eminent American – British artist, Mary Louise Coulouris (1939 – 2011). She trained at the Chelsea and Slade Schools of Art in London, and in the Ecole des Beaux – Arts and Atelier 17

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Old Coffee House, Bow Street

In 1902, the architect J S Fleming published a book, The Ancient Castles and Mansions of the Stirling Nobility. It had hundreds of drawings, mainly of the buildings in the Top of the Town which have long since been demolished. Another artist, Alexander Douglas Junior, visited some of the buildings

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