Henry Raeburn: Difference between revisions

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'''Sir Henry Raeburn''' {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|RA|RSA|FRSE}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|r|eɪ|b|ər|n}}; 4 March 1756 – 8 July 1823) was a Scottish [[portrait painter]]. He served as Portrait Painter to [[George IV of the United Kingdom|King George IV]] in Scotland.<ref name="Waterston2">{{cite book |last1=Waterston |first1=Charles |last2=Macmillan Shearer |first2=A. |title=Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002: Biographical Index |url=http://www.rse.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf |access-date=29 December 2011 |volume=II |date=July 2006 |publisher=[[The Royal Society of Edinburgh]] |location=Edinburgh |isbn=978-0-902198-84-5}}</ref>

 

==Biography==

Raeburn was born the son of a manufacturer in [[Stockbridge, Edinburgh|Stockbridge]], on the [[Water of Leith]]: a former village now within the city of [[Edinburgh]]. He had an older brother, born in 1744, called William Raeburn. His ancestors were believed to have been soldiers, and may have taken the name "Raeburn" from a hill farm in [[Annandale, Dumfries and Galloway|Annandale]], held by [[Sir Walter Scott]]'s family. Orphaned, he was supported by William and placed in [[Heriot's Hospital]], where he received an education. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to the [[goldsmith]] James Gilliland of Edinburgh, and various pieces of jewellery, mourning rings and the like, adorned with minute drawings on [[ivory]] by his hand, still exist.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} When the medical student [[Charles Darwin (medical student)|Charles Darwin]] died in 1778, his friend and professor [[Andrew Duncan (physician, born 1744)|Andrew Duncan]] took a lock of his student's hair to the jeweller whose apprentice, Raeburn, made a memorial locket.<ref name="Krause1879">{{cite book|author=Ernst Krause|title=Erasmus Darwin|url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=95&itemID=F1319&viewtype=text|year=1879|publisher=J. Murray|page=82}}</ref>

 

Soon he took to the production of carefully finished [[portrait miniature]]s; meeting with success and patronage, he extended his practice to oil painting, at which he was self-taught. Gilliland watched the progress of his pupil with interest, and introduced him to [[David Martin (artist)|David Martin]], who had been the favourite assistant of [[Allan Ramsay (artist)|Allan Ramsay the Latter]], and was now the leading portrait painter in Edinburgh. Raeburn was especially aided by the loan of portraits to copy. Soon he had gained sufficient skill to make him decide to devote himself exclusively to painting. George Chalmers (1776; Dunfermline Town Hall) is his earliest known portrait.

In his early twenties, Raeburn was asked to paint the portrait of a young lady he had noticed when he was sketching from nature in the fields. Ann was the daughter of Peter Edgar of Bridgelands, and widow of Count James Leslie of Deanhaugh. Fascinated by the handsome and intellectual young artist, she became his wife within a month, bringing him an ample fortune. The acquisition of wealth did not affect his enthusiasm or his industry, but spurred him on to acquire a thorough knowledge of his craft. It was usual for artists to visit Italy, and Raeburn set off with his wife. In London he was kindly received by Sir [[Joshua Reynolds]], the president of the [[Royal Academy]], who advised him on what to study in Rome, especially recommending the works of [[Michelangelo]], and gave Raeburn letters of introduction for Italy. In Rome he met his fellow Scot [[Gavin Hamilton (artist)|Gavin Hamilton]], [[Pompeo Girolamo Batoni]] and Byers, an antique dealer whose advice proved particularly useful, especially the recommendation that "he should never copy an object from memory, but, from the principal figure to the minutest accessory, have it placed before him." After two years of study in Italy he returned to Edinburgh in 1787, and began a successful career as a portrait painter. In that year he executed a seated portrait of the second [[Lord President of the Court of Session|Lord President]] [[Robert Dundas, of Arniston, the younger|Dundas]].

Examples of his earlier portraiture include a bust of Mrs Johnstone of Baldovie and a three-quarter-length of Dr [[James Hutton]]: works which, if somewhat timid and tentative in handling and not as confident as his later work, nevertheless have delicacy and character. The portraits of [[John Clerk, Lord Eldin]], and of Principal Hill of St Andrews belong to a later period. Raeburn was fortunate in the time in which he practised portraiture. Sir Walter Scott, [[Hugh Blair]], [[Henry Mackenzie]], [[Alexander Fraser Tytler|Lord Woodhouselee]], [[William Robertson (historian)|William Robertson]], [[John Home]], [[Robert Fergusson]], and [[Dugald Stewart]] were resident in Edinburgh, and were all painted by Raeburn. Mature works include his own portrait and that of the Rev. Sir Henry Moncrieff Wellwood, a bust of Dr Wardrop of Torbane Hill, two full-lengths of Adam Rolland of Gask, the remarkable paintings of Lord Newton and Dr [[Alexander Adam]] in the [[National Gallery of Scotland]], and that of William Macdonald of St Martin's. Apart from himself, Raeburn painted only two artists, one of whom was Sir [[Francis Leggatt Chantrey]], the most important and famous British sculptor of the first half of the 19th century. It has recently been revealed that Raeburn and Chantrey were close friends and that Raeburn took exceptional care over the execution of his portrait of the sculptor, one of the painter's mature bust-length masterpieces.<ref name="David Wilson pp. 45">David Wilson, '‘Chantrey's solar face': An intriguing mystery about Raeburn's portraits of a great sculptor', ''The British Art Journal'', Vol. XIV, No. 3 [2013/14], pp. 45–57.</ref>

 

 

In 1812 he was elected president of the [[Society of Artists of Great Britain|Society of Artists]] in Edinburgh; and in 1814 associate, and in the following year full member, of the [[Royal Scottish Academy]]. On 29 August 1822 he received a [[Knight Bachelor|knighthood]] during [[Visit of King George IV to Scotland|the visit of King George IV to Scotland]] and appointed His Majesty's [[Painter and Limner|limner]] for Scotland at the Earl of Hopetoun house.<ref>''[[The New Annual Register]]'', for year 1822, London, 1823, p. 166.</ref> He died in Edinburgh not long after on 8 July 1823.<ref>Memoirs of The Life of Sir Walter Scott. J G Lockhart p.130</ref>

Raeburn has been described as a "famously intuitive"<ref name=":0" /> portrait painter. He was unusual amongst many of his contemporaries, such as Reynolds, in the extent of his philosophy of painting directly from life; he made no preliminary sketches.<ref name="David Wilson pp. 45"/> This attitude partly explains the often coarse modelling and clashing colour combinations he employed, in contrast to the more refined style of [[Thomas Gainsborough]] and Reynolds. However these qualities and those mentioned above anticipate many of the later developments in painting of the 19th century from [[romanticism]] to [[Impressionism]].

 

 

==Subjects==

*Mrs Simpson

*[[Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet]]

*Andrew Spottiswoode<ref>{{cite web|url=http://collection.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/results.do?view=detail&images=true&dept=western/pre1900&db=object&browse=western/pre1900/browse&id=4183|title=Art Gallery of NSW}}</ref>

*[[Dugald Stewart]]

*Dr Rev David Johnston (1934 - 1824) Founder of Edinburgh Asylum for the Industrious Blind (now Royal Blind<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.royalblind.org/our-organisation/our-history|title=Edinburgh Asylum for the Industrious Blind}}</ref>)

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==Notes==

*{{cite DNB|wstitle=Raeburn, Henry}}

*{{NIE|title=Raeburn}}

 

==External links==

[[Category:1823 deaths]]

[[Category:18th-century Scottish painters]]

[[Category:Scottish male painters]]

[[Category:19th-century Scottish painters]]