Background
A younger brother of artist Robert Scott Lauder, he was born at Silvermills, Edinburgh, the 5th and youngest son of John Lauder of Silvermills (proprietor of the great tannery there) by his spouse Helen née Tait.
A younger brother of artist Robert Scott Lauder, he was born at Silvermills, Edinburgh, the 5th and youngest son of John Lauder of Silvermills (proprietor of the great tannery there) by his spouse Helen née Tait.
James Eckford Lauder attended Edinburgh Academy from 1824 to 1828.
In 1834 he joined Robert in Italy, and remained there nearly four years. In 1847 he sent to the competition in Westminster Hall The Parable of Forgiveness for which he was awarded a premium of two hundred pounds. One of his most successful works, The Wise and Foolish Virgins, was engraved by Lumb Stocks for the Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in Scotland.
The following are said to be amongst his principal pictures:
Hagar
The Unjust Servant (see Parable of the Unjust Steward)
The Wise and Foolish Virgins
Scene from The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1841)
Cherries (1842)
Hop-Scotch (1843)
Night and Day (1845)
Bailie Duncan McWheeble at Breakfast (1854)
James Watt and the Steam Engine (1855.
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh)
Self-portrait
Sir Walter Scott.