Design for an Illustration to ‘Rob Roy’ 

Editor: Here we have Thomas Stothard’s sketch, "Design for an Illustration to ‘Rob Roy’". The light washes give it a dreamlike quality, but the central figure seems quite tense. What do you see in this piece? Curator: It feels like a captured moment, doesn't it? As if we've stumbled into a private, possibly confrontational, scene. Stothard’s captured the essence of Rob Roy's defiance, a certain vulnerability mixed with pride. Editor: Pride, definitely. I hadn't thought of it that way at first. Curator: The sketchy lines suggest a story unfolding, inviting our imagination to fill in the gaps, doesn’t it? Perhaps we're all just eavesdroppers, piecing together the narrative. Editor: I love that image. I'll definitely look at preparatory drawings differently from now on.