Jane Nasmyth was born in Edinburgh in 1787 to Barbara Foulis and Alexander Nasmyth. Alexander Nasmyth and Barbara Foulis had married on 3 January 1786, and were living in Edinburgh where Alexander worked as a painter. Jane was the eldest of eight children: Jane, Barbara, Margaret, Elizabeth, Anne, Charlotte, Patrick, and James. Alexander Nasmyth worked as a portrait artist and painter of outdoor conversation pieces in the late 1780s, painting and befriending the poet Robert Burns and establishing the Nasmyth school of landscape painting in his home at 47 York Place, Edinburgh. Jane Nasmyth grew up in a home that served as an artistic and cultural center of Edinburgh. She helped raise her siblings, advise her parents in domestic and financial matters, and train artists at the Nasmyth school; for her sound judgment, she was nicknamed “Old Solid”.
Career
Jane Nasmyth and her siblings were trained as artists by their father, who employed innovative teaching techniques by encouraging sketching landscapes outdoors. She worked closely with Alexander, who encouraged his daughters to become professional artists. All the Nasmyth sisters as well as Patrick Nasmyth exhibited their work and painted professionally in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. In the early years of her artistic practice, Jane Nasmyth collaborated with her father and worked under his close supervision, producing landscapes which were considered indistinguishable from his and which were sold as pictures “by Miss Jane, with some of painting on it,” possibly to increase profit. Nasmyth went on to be recognized as a prominent landscape painter and to participate in numerous exhibitions. From 1826-29, she exhibited at the British Institution. She exhibited the painting Loch Katrine—from the Point of west Drumberg in the 1837 Exhibition of the Liverpool Academy, in which Anne, Charlotte, and Alexander Nasmyth were also featured. She took part in the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1843. In the 1840s, she exhibited “a finely-painted bit of Highland scenery” in the Exhibition of the Works of Modern Artists in Manchester; On the Derwent, Borodale, Cumberland and Distant View of Stirling from Alloa at the Birmingham Society of Artists; and View of Perth; Comrie, Perthshire; and Windsor Forest at the Devon and Exeter Society for the Encouragement of Art. She again exhibited at the Birmingham Society of Artists in 1846, with the paintings Lake of Windermere and On the Tweed, near Drygrange, Roxburghshire. From 1839 to 1866, Nasmyth exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists; from 1830 to 1862, at the Royal Scottish Academy; from 1862 to 1865, at the Royal Glasgow Institute.
