A horn drinking cup used by Robert Burns has been repatriated from Australia and returned to Ellisland, where the poet is thought to have last used it more than two centuries ago.
The cup is a simple vessel of the kind common in Scottish households of the late eighteenth century and it will be put on display in the Spence at Ellisland Museum and Farm from 21 July.
Made of horn and later embellished with a silver rim, edging and provenance plaque, the cup was first purchased at a sale of Burns’s effects in 1791 by the Taylor family, the subsequent owners of Ellisland Farm. It descended through seven generations of the same family in the years that followed, and in the early twentieth century travelled to Australia with a member of the family who emigrated. It remained there for more than a century, treated as a treasured family heirloom.
The cup surfaced at auction in the recent past, where it was identified by one of our Trustees as an object of potential national significance. A private owner undertook conservation work before offering it for onward sale. We were able to authenticate the object against our own detailed research into the Taylor family and their descendants, carried out by local student Logan Fry, who assists with curatorial research at Ellisland.
Adam Dickson, Project Curator at the Robert Burns Ellisland Trust, said:
“Every new piece of evidence at Ellisland deepens our understanding of what makes this place so exceptional. Objects like this are particularly precious because they connect us directly to Burns’s daily life.
“The cup has had a remarkable afterlife, and it was even used at a Burns Supper in Adelaide in 1956, where it was drunk from by the Governor of South Australia, Sir Robert George. Its journey has parallels with the reach of Burns’s legacy, carried around the world by the Scottish diaspora.
“To have the cup back at Ellisland, in the room where Burns would very likely have used it, is an extraordinary moment for the collection and for everyone who cares about this place. We are very grateful to the National Fund for Acquisitions for making this acquisition possible and to Logan whose meticulous research helped us prove its authenticity.”
Dr Hazel Williamson, National Fund for Acquisitions Manager at National Museums Scotland, said:
“We are delighted to support the acquisition of this cup, used by Burns at Ellisland Farm where he wrote some of his most celebrated works. The support provided by the National Fund for Acquisitions is vital in enabling museums and other heritage organisations in Scotland to continue the important work of preserving our shared heritage”.
Dr David Hopes, Trustee of the Robert Burns Ellisland Trust, Head of Leeds Museums & Galleries and former Director of the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, said:
“This is a genuinely important acquisition for Ellisland. It is a modest object but that’s what makes it valuable to Ellisland, because it speaks to his daily life here. This is a cup Burns would have drunk from at his own table, and its return to Ellisland is an important moment for the wider Burns collections landscape in Scotland.
“That the cup will go on permanent display in Burns’s Spence, the room in which Burns wrote of raising a cup of kindness in remembrance of old friends, brings a poignant symmetry to the object’s return.”
Visitors joining Adam Dickson’s Behind the Scenes Curator-led Tours this summer will be among the first to see the cup in person and to hear the story of its journey home directly from the curator. The next tour takes place on Monday 20 July at 1pm. Later this summer the cup will go on permanent display in the Spence, Burns’s writing room at Ellisland.