The first Scot to obtain citizenship of the city of Königsberg did so back in 1561 as part of the Scottish diaspora in Poland.[i]

 

Nearly 300 years later a teenager made the reverse trip from Königsberg to Scotland where he was to spend the remainder of his life, securing British citizenship in 1881.

 

His name was Otto Theodor Leyde, a native of the small town of Wehlau in former East Prussia [since 1945, Znamensk in Russia] which experienced economic highs as an early centre of horse trading, and printing. Born there in 1835 Otto had left to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Kunstakademie) in the major Baltic port of Königsberg. Opened as recently as 1845 the Academy had 8 members of staff under the direction of the painter Professor Ludwig Rosenfelder (1813-81) and 40 to 50 students regularly. Amongst those who taught the first of Its students were the architect and art historian Hermann Gemmel (1813-68) and the painter August Behrendsen. It specialised in landscape, genre and marine art as well as sculpture and architecture.

 

Leyde came to Edinburgh at the age of sixteen or seventeen and soon became acquainted with Friedrich Schenck (1811-85).[ii]

 

A native of Germany, Schenck had been brought to Edinburgh in 1840 by the early lithographic printer Samuel Leith (d.1857). After two years he left Leith’s business and set up his own. At the time of Leyde’s arrival, Schenck was in partnership with William Husband Macfarlane (1805-75) and established as one of the leading lithographic printers in the country. That partnership was dissolved in 1856, butLeyde remained with Schenck who continued under his own name.[iii]

 

Although competent as a landscapist, it was as a portraitist that Leyde would cement his reputation in Scotland.[iv]His success in this field was no doubt largely thanks to his early work with Schenck. This was several series of portraits; of Scottish MP’s; of eminent Scotsmen; and of historical personages including Goethe and Garibaldi, Robert Burns and Queen Victoria and HRH Prince Albert, which were drawn in chalk lithography by Leyde and published by Schenck between1859 and 1862.[v] Leyde was equally adept at drawing from the life or working from photographs. Schenck advertised his wares widely in the Scottish and English press. The advertisements were accompanied by his sending copies of the prints to the newspapers and the resulting reviews were universally favourable. This must have played a key role in circulating Leyde’s abilities as a portraitist.

 

In 1862 Leyde established his own studio at 16 Picardy Place in a building which housed also the studios of Hugh Cameron, Keeley Halswelle and George Hay. The four neighbours were also members of a Sketching Club alongside George Paul Chalmers, William F Vallance and Waller Hugh Paton, all of whom, like Leyde would become elected Members of the Royal Scottish Academy.

 

Leyde was also an original member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour in Scotland  and of the Society of Painter-Etchers and exhibited in most of the major provincial exhibitions in Britain. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1870 and was elevated to full Academician rank in 1880, becoming in the process the first Academician of mainland European birth.[vi] For several years he served as one of the Visitors to the RSA Life School.[vii]

 

Married and father to eight children, Leyde was by all accounts a well-respected and much liked person. His list of sitters reveals one who had wholly embraced, and in turn been embraced by, his adopted citizens.

 

Leyde died at home in Edinburgh’s St Bernard’s Crescent in 1897 after a short illness. In a first for the Academy, his funeral service was held in both the Library of the Academy (he had served as Librarian since 1886) and at his home from where the cortege moved to his burial place in Warriston Cemetery.

 

 

 - Robin Rodger, Documentation Officer

 

[i] Feduszka, Jacek, Szkoci i Anglicy w Zamościu w XVI-XVIII wieku, Czasy Nowożytne (in Polish). Vol. 22. Zarząd Główny Polskiego Towarzystwa Historycznego, 2009, p. 52.

[ii] Leyde’s Obituary, RSA Annual Report 1897, notice VIII

[iii] Schenck, David H J, Directory of the Lithographic printers of Scotland 1820-1970, Edinburgh Bibliographical Society in association with the National Library of Scotland, 1999

[iv] vide Leyde’s list of exhibited works, transcribed in The Royal Scottish Academy Exhibitors 1826-2990, ed Carles Baile de Laperriere, Volume 3 (L-Q), Hilmarton Manor Press, 1991

[v] Advertisements and editorial coverage in various of the Scottish and English Newspapers between November 1859 and June 1862 [accessed on-line via the British Newspaper Archive]

[vi] Elected Associate in place of the deceased William Crawford ARSA 9 November 1870; Leyde came 4th in first ballot with 8 votes. On the third ballot Leyde received 7 votes to 6 for John Smart and was duly elected [RSA General Meetings Minute Book 1857-1873] and Academician in place of the deceased James Cassie RSA 12 February 1880; Leyde topped the first ballot with 9 votes, lost the next 8-7 to N Macbeth and secured election on the third with 10 votes to 5 against W Vallance.[RSA General Meetings Book 1874-1892].

[vii] Leyde served as Visitor 1882-88 and 1896-97; he also served on RSA Council 1880-83, 1887-89 and 1893-95. A Curator of the RSA Library 18-83, he was appointed Librarian in 1887 and held that office until his death.