The Declaration Of Arbroath
Drag to set position!
( This page was updated 31st October 2024 )
-
THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH 3D FACSIMILE
Crown Copyright, National Records of Scotland, SP13/7
By Steven Patrick Sim, the Tartan Artisan ®
-
TIMELINE & EVOLUTION OF THE FACSIMILE - Including pricing and ordering details
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The Declaration of Arbroath 3D Facsimile 85% scale edition (originally launched in 2016) was discontinued in 2020. Two new editions were produced.
-
IN SUMMARY :
-
‘MEMORY OF THE WORLD' - 100 Piece edition - Life-Size - - - 100% SOLD OUT
…with all 3 ARTIST'S PROOFS now sold.
AP # 1/3 - Available for sale - ( SOLD )
AP # 2/3 - Available for sale - ( SOLD )
AP # 3/3 - Available for sale - ( SOLD )
-
'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' - 1320 Piece edition - 85% Scale - - - DISCONTINUED
…replaced with ‘7th CENTENNIAL EDITION’ in 2020 - 700 Pieces in total - 85% Scale
-
‘HERO EDITION’ - 7 Pieces in total - Life-Size - - - Created in 2020
…with the following single piece now available (at the time of this update) :
HERO PIECE - # 1/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 2/7 - LAST LIFE-SIZE HERO PIECE AVAILABLE !
HERO PIECE - # 3/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 4/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 5/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 6/7 - RESERVED FOR THE ARTIST
HERO PIECE - # 7/7 - SOLD
-
Please read on below for detailed information, and for the timeline and evolution of the facsimile...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
6th April 1320
The Declaration of Arbroath is signed and sealed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
27th November 1969
The artist Steven Patrick Sim is born.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
July 2016
The Declaration of Arbroath is awarded special status and included in the UNESCO 'Memory of the World' UK Register. This becomes the spark that inspires the idea to create the ‘MEMORY OF THE WORLD’ Declaration of Arbroath fine art 3D Facsimile.
-
The National Records of Scotland - the custodian of the Declaration of Arbroath artefact, and holder of the copyright in the historic document - is respectfully contacted seeking permission to begin work on the facsimile. After a number of discussions with the National Records of Scotland, permission is granted with strict requests requiring adherence - including the enduring recognition of the artefact’s Crown copyright status.
-
Initially an edition of 100 life-size pieces is developed, with a second 85% scaled edition of 1,320 pieces also being produced.
The original 2016 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' editions were published with seals created as printed & embellished photographic giclée reproductions, from photography of the actual seals themselves (taken of the Declaration of Arbroath artefact). The photographic images are utilised with permission granted by the National Records of Scotland.
These pieces were commissioned and made to order on a non-sequential numbered basis (in order for customers to choose their own meaningful numbers from the editions).
The 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' pieces were initially published at the cost of - £1,320 for the life-size edition - and £700 for the 85% scaled edition.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
2016 - to - 2019
Between the two 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' editions over 100 facsimiles are created …spanning three years.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
Early 2019
The artist becomes VAT registered.
Less than 10 life-size pieces remain - and the price of the remaining replicas from the 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' life-size edition is increased to £2,500.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
28th March 2019
Historic Environment Scotland approaches the artist seeking to acquire one of the last remaining pieces from the Declaration of Arbroath 3D Facsimile life size edition.
The reserved facsimile - No. 003/100 - is commissioned to become a display piece at the Arbroath Abbey Visitor Reception Building during the forthcoming 700th anniversary celebrations, on the 6th April 2020.
-
Historic Environment Scotland is an executive non-departmental public body responsible for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
June 2019
Historic Environment Scotland staff visit the artists' studio in Arbroath to inspect facsimile No. 003/100, which is now completed, but not yet framed.
The piece is subsequently [and respectfully] rejected, as it transpired the expectations of HES are not met after viewing the commissioned work. The artistic effect created in the facsimile (using the printed & embellished photographic giclée technique to produce the fine art seals) does not produce the full 360° 3D effect HES required for their facsimile.
-
Note:
When the Memory Of the World editions were developed in 2016, the inclusion of fully 3D printed seals (printed in 360° 3D) was explored but abandoned due to the non-availability of a 3D printed solution at the time.
Thus to make the 3D Declaration of Arbroath facsimile possible (and in order to be able to mark the 2016 Memory of the World registration) a printed & embellished photographic giclée technique was used for these fine art 2016 editions. This production method combined high resolution fine art printed images of the wax seals (with archival paper & inks) - thereafter adding a hand sculpted 3D embellishment using archival cotton board & clay. Finished with hand painted fine art acrylics and varnish.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
June 2019
Historic Environment Scotland thereafter approached the artist with a special request to explore the possibility of producing a unique Declaration of Arbroath piece for them, incorporating fully 360° 3D printed seals. A piece that would become (or replace) number 003/100 from the 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' life-size edition.
They further suggest that a possible collaboration between the National Records of Scotland (the custodian of the Declaration of Arbroath) and Historic Environment Scotland, may allow the 3D scanning of the seals from the historical artefact itself. Thus then allowing the subsequent 3D printing, and reproduction of fully 360° 3D printed seals for a new piece to go on display at the Arbroath Abbey Visitor Reception Building during the 700th anniversary celebrations.
-
This development becomes a significant challenge for the artist, as keeping integrity to the previously published life-size edition is of paramount importance.
-
Under no circumstances can one of the hundred pieces [in the life-size 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' Declaration of Arbroath 3D facsimile] be made differently within the published edition.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
July 2019
The artist starts making enquiries, looking to see if a 3D printed option may now be available (after 3 years since the original development and publishing of the original 2016 facsimile).
A conversation between the artist and a colleague results in a possible way forward, and a 3D printing solution may have now become accessible. Exploration begins… and an idea.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
16th November 2019
The artist visits the Arbroath Abbey Visitor Reception Building to view the William Home Lizars copperplate engraved published print of the Declaration of Arbroath which is on display. This exquisite engraving was produced sometime about 1815 and has become one of the only visible historical records of the Declaration of Arbroath - showing the document prior to being damaged after it was moved to an alternative storage location during historical renovations to Edinburgh Castle, sometime pre-1829.
The copperplate engraving is a highly detailed record of the 19 remaining seals (plus the 2 missing seals that were attached to the document prior to suffering damage). Permission is granted for detailed photography to be taken for reference material.
-
[ William Home Lizars (1788 – 30 March 1859) was a renowned Scottish painter and engraver. His stature recognised by his election as an Associate Engraver of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1827, and a burgess of the City of Edinburgh in 1828. ]
[ The Declaration was kept with the rest of the national archives in Edinburgh Castle until the early 17th century. When repair work was being carried out on the castle, the Declaration was taken into safekeeping at Tyninghame, the home of the Earl of Haddington. At some time during the 18th century the document suffered serious damage from damp so that today it shows some ragged gaps in which portions of text have vanished. Luckily, the full text of the document has survived from the earlier produced Lizars copperplate engraving. ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
7th February 2020
After a number of communications between the artist and Historic Environment Scotland, it becomes evident that a collaboration between them and the National Records of Scotland has not been possible …resulting in the Declaration of Arbroath artefact not being scanned for 3D reproduction purposes.
This is not unexpected as the priceless nature, and fragility of the document simply cannot be compromised nor threatened.
-
A solution to Historic Environment Scotland’s outstanding commission is still required.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
10th February 2020
…and onwards
After a 3D printing option at last becomes available - and spurred on by the approaching 700th anniversary - the artist begins work on developing 3D digital models of the seals from the Declaration of Arbroath. An urgent solution is still required in order to fulfil the commission by Historic Environment Scotland [and their forthcoming requirement for display].
As it was not possible to have 3D models supplied from scans of the actual Declaration document itself, the artist begins exploring a number of self taught techniques trying to create - by hand - 3D digital models using the detailed photos taken from the William Home Lizars engraving [as accurate reference material].
-
The first seal [belonging to Scottish Noble Sir Ingram de Umfraville] is initially worked on, being digitally hand ‘painted’ in shades of grey [greyscale] using a Mac and software (Adobe Photoshop is one of the programs used). For the first time the artist uses a stylus and tablet. The artist attempts to extrapolate a three dimensional rendition …from a two dimensional engraved image, using vision and intuition alone. The resulting rough greyscale ‘painting’ is then converted into a 3D model.
The model prototype is ‘test printed’ in 3D in white resin …and printed for the first time as a fully three dimensional rendered article. The result is promising, and it is printed as a ‘positive’ rendition. Encouraged by the test print, the artist works further on the hand painted greyscale artwork. Adding more details and understanding further how different shades of grey determine different ‘heights’ and ‘depths’ within a three dimensional model.
More test renders are produced, and the results are again encouraging …inspiring more confidence in the process.
-
The initial thought, by the artist, was to produce the 3D seals as positive printed renders, which can somehow be attached to the facsimile. However, it becomes clear that a printed plastic resin material would not be desirable and should not be used as material incorporated in any new version of the facsimile. The solution crystallises, and it is decided the 3D models should be printed as negatives, thereby allowing the seals to be ‘cast’ from a more suitable material. The decision is to use fine art clay.
The first 3D seal model is completed, and the reverse mould is printed. The final prototype is cast in clay. The artist then begins to explore different painting techniques …trying to achieve the most realistic ‘wax’ effect possible. Fine art acrylics are used - hand painted - and a polymer UV gloss varnish is applied to finalise the effect.
The result is astounding.
-
The seal of SIR INGRAM DE UMFRAVILLE, and the largest surviving seal in the Declaration of Arbroath, comes alive.
-
With no time to spare the remaining 20 seals are now interpreted as hand painted greyscale art pieces, taking many days of intense work (the two missing seals also being included from the Lizars engraving). These images are now submitted for printing as 3D moulds. The 3D seals are at last cast, in preparation for painting and attachment to the facsimile.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THEN A PROBLEM NEEDS SOLVED...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
9th March 2020
The final facsimile is delivered to the office of Historic Environment Scotland, Edinburgh, and approved.
-
THE PROBLEM:
Under no circumstances could the integrity of the original 100 piece 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' life-size edition be compromised. As such it was decided number 003/100 could not be altered with the addition of the new 3D printed seals.
THE SOLUTION:
A new - and independent - edition was created. The life-size 'DECLARATION OF ARBROATH 700th Anniversary HERO Edition' - of which only 7 pieces will be produced. Significantly different in a number of ways as well as the seals (including engraved brass plates featuring the Declaration of Arbroath famous quote - in Latin - being attached to a larger frame). This 700th anniversary 2020 edition now stands as separate from the 100 piece 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' life-size edition, published in 2016.
-
In order to fulfil their commission, Historic Environment Scotland acquired number 3/7.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
Sometime after 9th March 2020
Abbey Time Themes, the group that organises and enacts the Declaration of Arbroath pageant at the Abbey and surrounding areas each year, approaches the artist with a request.
-
“Is it possible to create a facsimile of the Declaration of Arbroath as it appeared - intact - on the 6th April 1320? To use as a new prop for the enactments? Also to be used during the fast approaching 700th Anniversary?” The answer is a resounding - YES! - as all the creative material is now available to make this possible.
-
Work immediately begins on this one-of-a-kind canvas based stage prop (which will include the two missing seals now also created as 3D printed seals - but as of yet unused). The aim …to produce a facsimile which can give an estimated resemblance as to how the Declaration of Arbroath may have appeared seven centuries ago - in 1320.
The piece is completed.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
16th March 2020
A black swan event is in motion - the COVID-19 pandemic - and the first lockdown is implemented across the UK, including Scotland.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
6th April 2020
The 700th anniversary celebrations, marking seven centuries since the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland’s most treasured artefact - are cancelled.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
6th April 2020
The artist Steven Patrick Sim, along with Kenneth Lownie (a member of the Abbey Time Themes group) - with no announcement or fanfare - walk quietly up to the Arbroath Abbey - through silent streets - to mark in a small way the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath.
-
The stage prop is held aloft briefly, for a quiet and solemn moment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
11th August 2020
Given now a new 3D printed cast seal option had been created, with much consideration, the decision was made to discontinue making the 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' 85% scale edition - of 1,320 pieces (with giclée printed seals) - of which only a relatively small number of these were made. Thus making these pieces now quite rare.
-
This was replaced with an updated 85% scale edition - ‘THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH 7th Centennial Edition’ - made up of a reduced edition size of 700 facsimiles. A larger format box frame (with inner casing) is developed for this edition,
Customers start ordering the newly published 7th Centennial Edition.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
The Declaration of Arbroath 'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' - 100 piece Life Size edition - from 2016 - is sold out, with all pieces claimed.
The last piece - # 3/100 - was claimed on the Artists’ birthday - 27th November 2022 - and found its home in Virginia USA!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
CURRENTLY AVAILABLE TO ORDER:
━━━━
'MEMORY OF THE WORLD' - 1320 Piece - 85% Scale Edition
1 piece remaining - thereafter no longer available
(Published 2016)
Giclée printed seals
# 1307/1320 - Commemorating the ‘Battle of Louden Hill’
- £700 (incl. VAT)
━━━━
‘MEMORY OF THE WORLD' - 100 Piece edition - Life-Size - - - 100% SOLD OUT
…with all 3 ARTIST'S PROOFS now sold.
AP # 1/3 - Available for sale - ( SOLD )
AP # 2/3 - Available for sale - ( SOLD )
AP # 3/3 - Available for sale - ( SOLD )
━━━━
7th CENTENNIAL EDITION - 700 Pieces in total - 85% Scale
690 pieces remaining
(Published 2020)
3D Cast Seals
- £1,320 (incl. VAT) - - - Book yours on a 1/3 deposit - £440
Note - As of 31st October 2024 - One piece is currently available for immediate ordering.
(Note - this piece may the last facsimile available for some time due to the artist's full diary over much of 2024/25).
━━━━
‘HERO EDITION’ - 7 Pieces in total - Life-Size - - - Created in 2020
…with the following single piece now available (at the time of this update) :
HERO PIECE - # 1/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 2/7 - LAST LIFE-SIZE HERO PIECE AVAILABLE !
HERO PIECE - # 3/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 4/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 5/7 - SOLD
HERO PIECE - # 6/7 - RESERVED FOR THE ARTIST
HERO PIECE - # 7/7 - SOLD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
Facsimiles in the - 7th CENTENNIAL EDITION - can be booked with a 1/3 deposit, with a middle payment made of 1/3 sometime before completion/framing/delivery (or collection). 1/3 balance (plus shipping costs, if applicable) due on completion.
[ £440 + £440 + £440 + Shipping if applicable ]
Note - Shipping costs unknown until completion of order.
-
Please contact the artist to discuss shipping considerations / and cost to ship if you are unable to collect. Collections from either the artists’ studio in Arbroath - or the framers’ studio in Balfron, by Glasgow. Local deliveries (in Scotland) may be possible by the artist or framer - charged at a per mile/travelled rate.
Shipping overseas may be possible, but please enquire upfront as to the viability this option.
-
Note, bookings are encouraged to confirm your piece order as the artist has limited availability to produce.
-
Facsimiles are made and certified lowest available number first, however you can choose a meaningful number by request if desired (and if still available).
-
Choose from 9 frame colour hand stained options - or simply hand finished in white. Real Oak frame mouldings may be available - at an additional cost for custom manufacture. Depending on availability. [ Note: Only applicable to the 7th CENTENNIAL Edition ].
-
Supplied with a signed and embossed certificate, and booklet detailing the full English and Latin translations of the Declaration of Arbroath.
-
These 2020 editions are also now supplied with a separate Fine Art Giclée print featuring the full transcript, in Latin, completing the lost text from the current day Declaration of Arbroath artefact. Extracted from the William Home Lizars engraving.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-
If you're interested in placing an order contact the artist:
Steven Patrick Sim
The Tartan Artisan®
Arbroath, Angus, Scotland, UK
+44 (0) 7590 566777
eMail: steve@theTartanArtisan.com
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Showcase
- JoinedMarch 2022
- OccupationArtist
- HometownArbroath
- CountryUnited Kingdom
- FacebooktheTartanArtisan
Most popular photos
Testimonials
Nothing to show.