A 17-year-old Girl Scout from Virginia is selling her family's valuable Scottish painting to raise thousands of dollars for a museum renovation project in the Scottish Highlands. Amelia Cimbalo has established her own charity as part of her final Girl Scout project to support the West Highland Museum in Fort William, Scotland.
Amelia and her art collector father Jeff Cimbalo are regular summer visitors to the Fort William area and frequent guests at the town's West Highland Museum. The teenager has turned her passion for Scottish history into a meaningful charitable endeavor by donating a family painting to help fund the museum's ambitious $6.2 million redevelopment program.
The artwork being sold is "Travellers on a Country Path, Possibly Ayr Beyond" by Alexander Nasmyth, an Edinburgh-born artist who died in 1758. The painting is being auctioned by fine art specialists Lyon and Turnbull, with an estimated sale price between $3,700 and $6,200. Nasmyth was a renowned landscape and portrait painter who was friends with the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, and this particular work depicts a scene in Burns' home region of Ayrshire.
"The whole idea is to spread awareness about Scottish history," Amelia explained. "The painting has been hanging in our house for five years and it is a painting that my dad thought would be very good for this because it is by a Scottish artist, and it is small enough to be shipped out." During her visits to the west Highlands, Amelia works as a research assistant at the museum, deepening her connection to Scottish heritage.
The Cimbalo family's love affair with Scotland began with Jeff's fascination for Scottish literature, particularly the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, author of "Treasure Island" and "Kidnapped." Their summer holidays are spent near the site of the historic Appin murder, a 1752 assassination of a government agent that inspired Stevenson's novel "Kidnapped." Jeff Cimbalo noted that his family visits the area so frequently that they feel like locals, saying, "I have been dragging Amelia to this museum since she could walk. We've formed a relationship with the place. We love being there. If we could go there more we would."
The West Highland Museum, located in Fort William's Cameron Square, has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. In 2012, the museum attracted approximately 9,000 visitors, but after becoming free to enter, it welcomed 59,000 people last year. The museum is particularly popular with fans of the "Outlander" books and television series, who come to view its extensive collection of artifacts related to the Jacobite cause. Author Diana Gabaldon, who wrote the "Outlander" series, toured the museum last month while in Scotland to receive an honorary doctorate.
Alice Strang, senior fine art specialist at Lyon and Turnbull, praised Amelia's initiative: "What an amazing Girl Scout Amelia is, to have established not only a charity for her final scout project, but one that will support Highland heritage. 'Travellers on a Country Path, Possibly Ayr Beyond' is a gem of a painting by one of Scotland's most important artists and its sale will help the West Highland Museum's exciting redevelopment plans."
The museum's expansion plans represent a significant investment in preserving and presenting Highland heritage to an international audience. With visitor numbers increasing dramatically and growing interest from popular culture, the redevelopment program aims to enhance the museum's capacity to educate and inspire future generations about Scottish history and culture.
