The Social Life in a 19th Century Engraved Drawing of St Salvator’s Chapel in St Andrews an Object Biography

Abstract

During the summer vacation of 2020, I bought a 19th-century engraved drawing from an online used-bookstore in Beijing depicting St Salvator’s Chapel in St Andrews. After researching the artist, I found it was originally a book page detached from The Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland written and illustrated by Robert. W. Billings (1845). As a Chinese student studying at the University of St Andrews, I was very excited to have it in my collection, for it has traveled from the UK to China and resembles my own experience of being an international member of the community.