Background
Henry Raeburn was born on March 4, 1756 in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. His father was a manufacturer. Also, Henry had an older brother, whose name was William Raeburn.
Lauriston Pl, Edinburgh EH3 9EQ, United Kingdom
In his early years, Henry was accepted in Heriot's Hospital (present-day George Heriot's School), where he received the elements of a sound education.
Lauriston Pl, Edinburgh EH3 9EQ, United Kingdom
In his early years, Henry was accepted in Heriot's Hospital (present-day George Heriot's School), where he received the elements of a sound education.
Henry Raeburn was born on March 4, 1756 in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. His father was a manufacturer. Also, Henry had an older brother, whose name was William Raeburn.
In his early years, Henry was accepted in Heriot's Hospital (present-day George Heriot's School), where he received the elements of a sound education. At the age of fifteen, Raeburn was an apprentice of a goldsmith, James Gilliland, in Edinburgh.
Some time later, he left for Italy, where he studied the works of the greatest painters, such as Michelangelo. Henry stayed in Italy for two years.
In 1787, after two years of study in Italy, Henry came back to Edinburgh and began a successful career as a portrait painter. That year, he executed a seated portrait of the second Lord President Dundas. Also, his earliest portraiture works include a bust of Mrs. Johnstone of Baldovie and a three-quarter-length of Dr. James Hutton, portraits of Sir Walter Scott, Hugh Blair, Henry Mackenzie, Lord Woodhouselee and other renowned people.
Raeburn's later works include portraits of John Clerk, Lord Eldin, Lord Newton, Dr. Alexander Adam and his own portrait as well. 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.
In 1812, Henry was appointed a president of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. In 1822, when George IV visited Edinburgh, he knighted Raeburn, creating him king's limner and painter for Scotland the following year.
Henry Raeburn gained prominence as a leading Scottish portrait painter during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The work "Sir John Sinclair" is one of his most brilliant portraits.
In 1812, he was elected a president of the Society of Artists of Great Britain. Moreover, Henry served as a portrait painter to the King George IV in Scotland.
Today, many of his works are kept in the National Gallery of Scotland.
Portrait of Sir John and Lady Clerk of Penicuik
Catherine Vorontsova
John Johnstone, Betty Johnstone and Miss Wedderburn
Nathaniel Spens
John Playfair
Portrait of Sir Walter Scott
Little Girl Holding Flowers, Portrait of Nancy Graham
Portrait of Miss Eleanor Urquhart
John Rennie
Portrait of the Binning Children
Portrait of Isabella McLeod, Mrs. James Gregory
Portrait of David Anderson
Portrait of Niel Gow
Mrs. McLean of Kinlochaline
Portrait of Colonel Francis James Scott
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville
The Skating Minister (The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch)
Portrait of Lucius O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath
Lady Anne Torphicen
Portrait of Thomas Reid
Boy and Rabbit
Ann Fraser, Mrs. Alexander Fraser Tytler
Portrait of Mrs. Anne Hart
Portrait of the Rev. William Paul
Jacobina Copland
Portrait of Francis and his wife Eliza Dundas Cumming
Sir John Sinclair
John Robison
Portrait of Bryce McMurdo
Elizabeth Hamilton
Portrait of Colonel Alasdair Mcdonnell of Glengarry
John Home
Portrait of Lord Newton
Portrait of Mrs. Kenneth Murchison
Hugh William Williams
General Sir William Maxwell
The Archers
Henry Mackenzie
Portrait of Professor George Joseph Bell
Portrait of Mrs. E. Bethune
Lieutenant-General William Stuart
Portrait of Mrs. Andrew
Rev. Alexander Carlyle
The Allen Brothers
The Drummond Children
Portrait of The Reverend John Thomson, Minister of Duddingston
Captain Patrick Miller
Rear-Admiral Charles Inglis
Portrait of Alexander Keith of Ravelston, Midlothian
Mrs. Colin Campbell of Park
Portrait of Janet Dundas
Portrait of John Tait and His Grandson
Captain Hay of Spot
Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield
Francis Horner
Mrs. Scott Moncrieff
Portrait of William Blair
Quotations:
"Portrait-painting to be the most delightful thing in the world, for everyone came to me in the happiest of moods and with the pleasantest of faces."
"What is going on among the artists, for I do assure you I have as little communication with any of them and know almost as little about them as if I were living at the Cape of Good Hope."
Raeburn was described as a "famously intuitive" portrait painter. He was unusual amongst many of his contemporaries, such as Reynolds, in the extent of his philosophy of painting directly from life. Moreover, he made no preliminary sketches.
Also, Henry was a man of many interests and a good conversationalist.
Henry was married to Ann Edgar, a daughter of Peter Edgar of Bridgelands and widow of Count James Leslie of Deanhaugh.
