sketcher, was born in the early 1830s in Glasgow, Scotland, the second of three daughters and probably second youngest of the five children of Elizabeth and Peter Cumming, a merchant and draper. The family came to South Australia in 1846. The following year Miss Cumming, called the 'very young’ daughter of a newly arrived emigrant to Adelaide, exhibited watercolour views of 'Scotland, Ireland &c.’ at the 1847 South Australian Exhibition of Colonial Artists. These were considered 'perhaps the most striking sketches in the Exhibition’ by a reporter on the Atlas , although Janet must then have been only about 15.
On 28 January 1853 she married the solicitor William David Scott at North Adelaide. They lived in Port Adelaide and Alberton and had two sons and a daughter, Jeanette Augusta. The J.J. Scott who exhibited at Adelaide in 1859 was probably Janet. As Mrs W.D. Scott she had several works included in the South Australian Society of Arts’ sixth annual exhibition in 1863, one 'of peculiar merit’, according to the Advertiser , being Charming May . One of several chalk drawings lent by her husband, this was thought deserving of special mention 'both from its fanciful design and its spirited execution’. Mrs Scott showed four of her own pictures at the same time, including two local subjects: Mount Torrens and Ingalla Falls .
- Writers:
- Staff Writer
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
