Portrait painting in Scotland

The origins of the tradition of portrait painting in Scotland are in the Renaissance, which began to reach Scotland in the fifteenth century. Portraits were given an important role in Renaissance society, valued as objects, and as depictions of earthly success and status.^[1] In Scotland this was particularly through contacts with the Netherlands, generally considered the centre of painting in the Northern Renaissance.^[2] The products of these connections included a fine portrait of William Elphinstone (1431–1514), Lord Chancellor, Bishop of Aberdeen and founder of the university there.^[3] Painted around 1505, it is one of the earliest representations of a named Scottish subject to survive and was probably painted by a Scots artist using Flemish techniques of oil on wood.^[4] Around the same time, Scottish monarchs, like those in England, turned to the recording of royal likenesses in panel portraits, painted in oils on wood, perhaps as a form of political expression. As in England, the monarchy may have had model portraits of royalty used for copies and reproductions, but the versions of native royal portraits that survive are generally crude by continental standards.^[2]

In 1502, James IV paid for delivery of portraits of the Tudor household, perhaps by the "Inglishe payntour" named "Mynours," who stayed in Scotland to paint the king and his new bride Margaret Tudor the following year.^[5] "Mynours" was Maynard Wewyck, a Flemish painter who usually worked for Henry VII in London.^[6] A portrait of James IV at Abbotsford House bearing the date "1502" has been attributed to Wewyck.^[7]

Another Flemish painter, called "Piers", tentatively identified as Peeken Bovelant, an apprentice of an Antwerp painter Goswijn van der Weyden, was brought to Scotland by Andrew Halyburton, the trading agent in Middelburg, in September 1505. No details are known of his work, except his assistance in painting costumes and heraldry for tournaments, but the king gave him a salary and accommodation, and it is likely that Piers made portraits for the court. Piers returned to Flanders from Inverkeithing in July 1508. Some references in the royal accounts call him a "Frenchman".^[8]

The tradition of royal portrait painting in Scotland was probably disrupted by the minorities and regencies it underwent for much of the sixteenth century. In his majority James V was probably more concerned with architectural expressions of royal identity.^[9] Mary Queen of Scots had been brought up in the French court, where she was drawn and painted by major European artists, but she did not commission any adult portraits, with the exception of the joint portrait with her second husband Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. This may have reflected an historic Scottish pattern, where heraldic display, or an elaborate tomb were considered more important than a portrait.^[4]

Portraiture began to flourish after the Reformation in the mid-sixteenth century.^[9] There were anonymously painted portraits of important individuals, including one of James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell (1556).^[9] Artists from the Low Countries remained important. Hans Eworth, who had been court painter to Mary I of England, painted a number of Scottish subjects in the 1560s. His 1561 wedding portraits were miniatures commemorating the brief marriage of the Earl of Bothwell and Jean Gordon.^[4] He also painted James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray in 1561 and two years later he painted a joint portrait of the young Darnley and his brother Charles Stuart.^[10] Lord Seton, Master of the Royal Household, commissioned two portraits in the Netherlands in the 1570s, one of himself and one a family portrait.^[11] A specific type of Scottish picture from this era was the "vendetta portrait", designed to keep alive the memory of an atrocity. Examples include the Darnley memorial portrait, which shows the young James VI kneeling at his murdered father's tomb, and the life-size portrait of the corpse of The Bonnie Earl of Moray, vividly showing the wounds received by James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray when he was killed by George Gordon, 1st Marquess of Huntly in 1591.^[12]

There was an attempt to produce a series of portraits of Scottish kings in panel portraits, probably for the royal entry of the fifteen-year-old James VI in 1579, which are Medieval in form. In James VI's personal reign, Renaissance forms of portraiture began to dominate.^[9] He employed two Flemish artists, Arnold Bronckorst in the early 1580s and Adrian Vanson from around 1584 to 1602, who have left a visual record of the king and major figures at the court.^[4] Although few portraits from this period exist, the case of Archibald Cornwall, executed for displaying royal portraits on the gallows, suggests that many householders in Edinburgh owned copies of royal portraits.^[13] However, the Union of Crowns in 1603 removed a major source of artistic patronage in Scotland as James VI and his court moved to London. The result has been seen as a shift "from crown to castle", as the nobility and local lairds became the major sources of patronage.^[14]

By the seventeenth century the fashion for portraiture had spread down the social order to lairds such as Colin Campbell of Glenorchy and John Napier of Merchiston.^[4] Adam de Colone, perhaps the son of Adrian Vanson and probably trained in the Netherlands, was working in England in the 1620s. In 1623 he painted his portrait of George Seaton, 3rd Earl of Winton and his sons and another of Seaton's wife Anne Hay with her two daughters.^[15]

The first significant native artist was George Jamesone of Aberdeen (1589/90–1644), who, having trained in the Netherlands, became one of the most successful portrait painters of the reign of Charles I. He trained the Baroque artist John Michael Wright (1617–94), who also studied in Rome with Poussin and Velázquez. Wright painted both Scottish and English subjects,^[11] including his sensitive portrait of the architect William Bruce (1664) and styled himself as "king's painter". His full-length painting of Lord Mungo Murray in Highland dress (c. 1680) is an early example of what became a standard format of Scottish portrait. The Commonwealth period saw the emergence of David Scougall (c.1610–1680), mainly noted for his portrait of the Covenanter leader Archibald Campbell. Also important was the miniaturist David Paton (fl. 1668–1708),^[16] who worked mainly in plumbago, but also painted portraits in oil. Visiting artists included Jacob de Wett (c. 1610–c. 1691), who was commissioned in 1684 to paint images of 110 kings for Holyroodhouse and similar work at Glamis Castle.^[17]

After the Glorious Revolution, Wright, a Jacobite, fell out of favour at the royal court.^[18] The Flemish-Spanish painter John Baptist Medina (1659–1710) came to Scotland in 1693 and became the leading Scottish portrait painter of his generation.^[19] Among his best known works are a group of about 30 oval bust-lengths, including a self-portrait, in Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh. He trained his son, also John, and William Aikman (1682–1731), who became the leading Scottish portrait-painter of the next generation.^[20] Aikman migrated to London in 1723, and from this point until the late eighteenth century, most Scottish painters of note followed him.^[21]

John Alexander was born in Aberdeen and was a great grandson of portrait painter George Jamesone. He studied in London and Rome, returning to Scotland about 1720.^[21] His younger contemporary William Mossman (1700–1771) was also from Aberdeen and studied in Rome. Both worked predominately in the north-east around their home city, but also painted many of the figures of early-Enlightenment Edinburgh. Alexander's best known work included the portrait of George Drummond the Lord Provost of Edinburgh (1756), who had been responsible for the creation of the New Town in Edinburgh and the Royal Infirmary, which is shown in the background of the painting. Mosman's work included his portrait of John Campbell of the Bank (1749), who was chief cashier of the Royal Bank of Scotland and a Whig, but who is depicted in the recently forbidden Highland dress. Because of his Jacobite sympathies Alexander was forced to leave for the continent after the rebellion of 1745, and in Rome he made a living painting the Jacobite expatriates who congregated there, before his return a few years later.^[22]

Allan Ramsay (1713–84) studied in Sweden, London and Italy before basing himself in Edinburgh, where he established himself as a leading portrait painter to the Scottish nobility. He undertook portraits of many of the major figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, including his friend the philosopher David Hume and the visiting Jean-Jacques Rousseau. After a second visit to Italy he moved to London in 1757 and from 1761 he was Principal Painter in Ordinary to George III. He now focused on royal portraits, often presented by the king to ambassadors and colonial governors, but also more intimate works like that of Queen Charlotte and her Children (c. 1755). His work has been seen as anticipating the Grand Manner of Joshua Reynolds, but many of his early portraits, particularly of women, are less formal and more intimate studies.^[23]

The leading portrait painter of the second half of the century was Henry Raeburn (1756–1823). He was the first significant artist to pursue his entire career in Scotland. Born in Edinburgh and returning there after a trip to Italy in 1786, he is most famous for his intimate portraits of leading figures in Scottish life, going beyond the aristocracy to lawyers, doctors, professors, writers and ministers,^[24] adding elements of Romanticism to the Grand Manner tradition.^[25] He became a knight in 1822 and the King's painter and limner in 1823, marking a return to the post being associated with the production of art.^[24] His pupils included the brothers William (Alexander) (1772–1841), Archibald (1765–1835) and Andrew Robertson (1777–1845). William and Archibald went on to found the Columbian Academy of Painting in New York, and Andrew to be the leading Scottish miniaturist of his day. Also associated with Raeburn towards the end of his career were John Syme (1795–1861) and Colvin Smith (1795–1875).^[26]