The centrepiece is the greatest golfing painting in the world, Charles Lees’ famous 1847 masterpiece The Golfers.

This commemorates a match played on the Old Course at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, St Andrews, by Sir David Baird and Sir Ralph Anstruther, against Major Hugh Lyon Playfair and John Campbell of Saddell.

It represents a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Scottish golf at that time and was famously reproduced in a fine engraving which sold in great quantities.

Lees (1800-80) made use of photography, at a time when it was in its infancy, to help him design the painting’s overall composition.

The image in question, taken by photography pioneers D O Hill & Robert Adamson, is included in the show and Lees’s preparatory drawings and oil sketches also are displayed alongside the finished painting to offer visitors further insight into the creation of this great work.

Impressions of The Golfers are now in many of the greatest golf clubhouses around the world.

The painting is jointly owned by the National Galleries of Scotland and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.

via ‘The Art of Golf: The Story of Scotland’s National Sport’ opens at the Scottish National Gallery.