Robert Burns statue in the Central Park

The statue of Robert Burns is one of 29 statues located in Central Park, New York. Most of them have been donated by individuals or organizations.

The sculptor of Robert Burns’s statue was Sir John Steel, the eminent Victorian sculptor. He created it as companion to the statue of Sir Walter Scott located across Literary Walk. The portrait of Burns by Alexander Nasmyth painted in 1787 served his as a model. It was donated to the Park on October 3, 1880 by Saint Andrew’s Society of the State of New York and the Scottish-American community.

The bronze statue of Burns presents this Scottish national poet sitting on a tree stump with a quill pen in right hand. He is looking up to heaven and thinking of his first love Mary “Highland” Campbell who had died very young to whom he wrote the poem “Highland Mary”. This poem is inscribed on the scroll at his feet.

The pedestal of the statue has been rebuilt twice, in 1940 and in 1993 when the whole statue underwent the reparation works.