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May Day or 'Kate of Aberdeen'

Artist T. Tomkins

AssociatedAssociated with John Cunningham (Dublin, Ireland, 1729 - 1773)

After Charles Bretherton (1760 - 1783)

Date1783

Mediumstipple engraving on paper

ClassificationsPrints

DimensionsImage Size: Diameter: 30.5 cm
Frame: Diameter: 37 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1983.

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG000641

Keywords

Ballad

About MeThe tinted stipple print illustrates a pastoral poem by the Scots poet John Cunningham (1729-73), which was later set to music by Jonathan Battishill, an English composer who wrote songs that were sung at the celebrated Vauxhall Gardens in London. The poem is printed in Cunningham's "Poem Chiefly Pastoral" published in 1766.

Traditionally, young unmarried girls used to rise before dawn on May Day to bathe their faces in the dew, thus ensuring the continuation of their beauty for the coming year. Cunningham's verses suggest that Kate is to be chosen as May Queen. Her precise identity has never been established and it is possible that she is simply a prototype representing youth, beauty and innocence and bearing a popular name.

The idea of a veiled beauty dates back to classical antiquity - Kate is unveiling her face for the admiring shepherds. The sophisticated lady seated in the foreground in her fashionable hat seems to have been put there as a foil to the simplicity of Kate's attire and demenour.