Henry Raeburn

Scottish painter

• Born: March 4, 1756
• Birthplace: Stockbridge (now in Edinburgh), Scotland
• Died: July 8, 1823
• Place of death: Edinburgh, Scotland

For nearly forty years, Raeburn reigned as the leading portrait painter in his native Scotland, and he left a valuable pictorial record of many prominent and affluent personages of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Scottish society.

Early Life

Henry Raeburn was the younger son of Robert and Ann Elder Raeburn. His family had long been associated with agriculture in the Scottish Lowlands, but his father had abandoned that life for a career in textile manufacturing, eventually becoming a successful mill owner. Both of his parents died when young Henry was only six, leaving him in the care of his elder brother, William.

In 1765, Raeburn enrolled at Heriot’s Hospital, a prestigious private school in Edinburgh that provided its students with the classical education customary for a gentleman. Raeburn, who displayed a fondness for caricature while in school, received only a few years of formal education before being apprenticed at the age of fifteen to James Gilliland, a jeweler and goldsmith. Early in his apprenticeship, Raeburn began painting miniature portraits of his friends during his spare time. Gilliland, recognizing his potential, introduced his apprentice to the engraver David Deuchar. Raeburn received occasional drawing lessons from Deuchar and through him met David Martin, then considered Edinburgh’s preeminent painter. Martin did not give Raeburn any formal instruction but permitted him to use his studio and allowed him to copy some of his works. Their budding friendship ended when Martin accused Raeburn of selling one of the copies he had made.

The aspiring young artist thus received remarkably little formal instruction. During the 1770’s, Edinburgh was a city with neither a public art gallery nor frequent artistic exhibitions where he could study the works of acknowledged masters. However, many middle- and upper-class homes contained portraits, which Raeburn undoubtedly examined; and reproductions of works by such established painters as George Romney and Sir Joshua Reynolds were also readily available. Raeburn was fortunate in that Edinburgh was an expanding and increasingly prosperous community during the late eighteenth century, creating a ready-made market for a determined and talented painter who could supply a steady stream of portraits to its citizens.

Raeburn’s success in selling some of his miniatures, few of which survive, enabled him to negotiate a release from his apprenticeship and devote his energy to a full-time career as a portraitist. His earliest known full-size work in oil, George Chalmers of Pittencrieff , dates from 1776, but it is impossible to date accurately any of the other portraits from his early period, from 1776 to 1784.

Raeburn never endured the severe financial difficulties that plagued so many aspiring artists. His good friend John Clerk, a noted lawyer, introduced him to many prospective clients, and from his early twenties the artist had sufficient commissions to live comfortably. His financial future was secured by his 1778 marriage to Ann Edgar Leslie, a wealthy widow twelve years his senior and already the mother of three. Pleasant and supportive, Ann Raeburn proved to be an excellent wife. The couple had two sons, Peter and Henry, the elder of whom died as an adolescent.

Life’s Work

During the late eighteenth century, it was still commonplace for aspiring artists to study abroad in order to observe the works of the great masters. In his late twenties and now comfortable financially, Raeburn decided to follow this tradition. He first traveled to London, where he met Reynolds, then president of the Royal Academy and the preeminent figure in the British art world. Reynolds permitted him to work in his studio for several weeks and was impressed by the young Scot’s abilities. He strongly advised Raeburn to go to Rome and, not knowing of his financial situation, even offered him financial assistance. Raeburn declined the money but gratefully accepted the letters of introduction that Reynolds provided.

During his two years in Rome, Raeburn probably did not produce any full-scale portraits but instead devoted himself to the study of the great works of art that abounded in the city. He became friends with Pompeo Batoni, then a leading artist, who had painted many outdoor portraits of visiting Scots; Raeburn was also influenced by the antiquary and art dealer James Byrnes. Although his Italian sojourn did not radically transform Raeburn’s style or subject matter, it undoubtedly had an effect on his use of poses, color, and tonality. After his return to Edinburgh in 1787, Raeburn rapidly replaced Martin as the city’s leading portraitist, a status he maintained until his death. By 1795, Raeburn was able to move from his studio on George Street to more spacious accommodations at York Place, which he personally designed. In addition to his own studio, York Place also contained a large gallery where the public could view his works. He actively promoted artistic exhibitions in the city and freely lent his gallery for such purposes.

Described by contemporaries as a tall, robust man with a rather florid complexion, Raeburn enjoyed a prominent position in Edinburgh society, free from major rivals or controversies. An interesting conversationalist who was fond of anecdotes, the amiable portraitist became friends with many of the city’s prominent citizens and achieved a social status denied to all but the most successful artists of the period.

Nothing was bohemian or unconventional about Raeburn’s lifestyle. He enjoyed golf, fishing, and archery, as well as long walks in the country. He also retained a lifelong interest in architecture and had a passion for building miniature ships and models. As a painter, Raeburn was a diligent and dependable worker. Rising at seven, he was at work in his studio by nine and usually saw three or four sitters a day, keeping each of them between one and a half and two hours. He usually finished work by five and dined at six, thus freeing his evenings for time with family, friends, and hobbies.

When painting, Raeburn worked with much greater spontaneity than did most of his contemporaries. He never made preliminary sketches or drawings, but instead preferred to paint directly onto the canvas, starting with the forehead, chin, nose, and mouth. His free, bold brushwork resembled that of the Spanish master Diego Velázquez, examples of whose work Raeburn probably had studied in Rome. Raeburn believed that nothing should divert attention from the face, and his heads are more finely done than other parts of the body. His aim was always to capture the personality of the sitter, and many of his portraits have a delightful informality, with the subject relaxed in a chair.

Knowing that his portraits would be placed high on the walls of many homes, Raeburn preferred to paint his subjects from an angle similar to that from which they would eventually be viewed. He therefore placed them on a platform in his studio and, after studying them for some time, would magically begin to capture their likeness, sometimes employing a brush up to a yard long.

Although he bowed to the tradition, popularized by such artists as Thomas Gainsborough and Reynolds, of including scenic settings as backgrounds for some of his portraits, Raeburn believed that such landscapes should not detract from the individuality of his sitter. In many of his portraits, he completely eliminated the background or reduced it to simple drapery. Raeburn’s blunt, bold brushwork produced figures with squarish, solid countenances. His style changed remarkably little over the decades, although his tonality became lighter and his lighting less artificial in his later years. Contemporaries occasionally criticized his technique for being overly simplified and lacking in richness of color and refinement.

Despite Raeburn’s prominence in Edinburgh, he long remained isolated from the center of the British artistic world and achieved a reputation in London only late in life; his visits to the capital were infrequent. In 1792, he sent his first three works to the city for the annual Royal Academy exhibition. The largest of these, a magnificent portrait of Sir John Clerk and his wife, arrived too late to be hung, but one of the aldermen, John Boydell, arranged for the portrait to be shown at the Shakespeare Gallery, where it attracted some favorable attention in the press.

Raeburn did not start regularly sending works to London until 1810, the year he seriously contemplated moving to the capital. John Hoppner, a fashionable London artist, had just died, and Raeburn considered taking over Hoppner’s house and practice. It is possible that he considered the move because of recent difficulties caused by his son’s financial failures. To recoup his losses, Raeburn had been forced to sell York Place and had even accepted commissions to copy portraits done by other artists—a rather unusual step for someone of his reputation. Ultimately, however, Raeburn abandoned the idea of relocating in London and decided to stay in his native city, where he had no serious competitors and his reputation was impregnable.

Gradually, the London establishment officially recognized the Scottish painter’s abilities. He was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1812 and, after failing to be elected to one of the two vacancies in 1814, was ultimately elevated to full membership in 1815. Further recognition came during the final years of his life. During George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822, Raeburn was knighted, thus earning the same social status achieved by Reynolds in the previous century. In May, 1823, Raeburn was appointed the king’s painter in Scotland, but he did not live long enough to paint a planned portrait of the monarch in Highland dress. His last work was a portrait of Sir Walter Scott. Shortly after accompanying Scott and several others on an expedition to Ravensheugh Castle in Fife, Raeburn succumbed to a mysterious ailment and died, on July 8, 1823.

Significance

Often referred to as the “Scottish Reynolds,” Sir Henry Raeburn left a valuable legacy of portraits of the Scottish society whose values and ideas he shared. Portraiture was the only type of painting he attempted, in part because it brought the most dependable and lucrative commissions. The exact number of Raeburn portraits remains unknown; he kept no record of his sitters, so neither an accurate chronology nor the exact quantity of his work is known. He produced at least seven hundred portraits during his long and productive career. Almost all of his famous Scottish contemporaries—such as Adam Smith, James Boswell, and David Hume—sat for Raeburn portraits, the main exception being Robert Burns. Raeburn’s series of Highland chiefs in native garb, the most famous being The MacNab , gained particular popularity. However, the majority of his portraits were of various lawyers, academics, military officers, and others of the professional class who wished to have their likenesses preserved for posterity.

Raeburn’s work remained relatively unknown outside Scotland until the twentieth century, in part because so much of it remained in private collections. By 1900, however, major galleries eagerly sought to acquire his portraits. Many critics now rank him as one of the most important figures in British art during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

With his quiet, undramatic lifestyle hundreds of miles away from the turmoil of the London art world, Raeburn was long a rather obscure figure, and much less is known about the details of his life and work than is known about such contemporaries as Gainsborough, Reynolds, or Joseph Turner. Nevertheless, Raeburn’s reputation as a superb portraitist seems secure. His diligent promotion of art in Scotland and his engrossing portraits undoubtedly provided a significant contribution to Great Britain’s expanding role in the visual arts.

Bibliography

Armstrong, Sir Walter. Sir Henry Raeburn. London: W. Heinemann, 1901. The standard biography, by a prominent art historian who also wrote works on Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Turner. Includes a catalog of Raeburn’s paintings, prepared with the assistance of James L. Caw.

Arts Council of Great Britain, Scottish Committee. Raeburn Bicentenary Exhibition. Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1956. Prepared as a catalog for the special Edinburgh exhibition celebrating the bicentennial of Raeburn’s birth, this work includes an introductory biographical essay by David Baxandall and detailed explanatory notes about fifty-three of Raeburn’s portraits.

Brotchie, Theodore C. F. Henry Raeburn, 1756-1823. London: Cassell, 1924. Includes a brief bibliography, as well as a chart showing the prices paid for some of Raeburn’s paintings between 1907 and 1922.

Caw, James L. Raeburn. London: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1909. A brief study by the former director of the National Gallery of Scotland and leading authority on Scottish art history. Includes some original letters as well as eight color illustrations of Raeburn’s portraits.

Greig, James. Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A. London: Connoisseur, 1911. Includes a fairly extensive catalog of Raeburn’s paintings, selected correspondence, and numerous black-and-white reproductions.

Irwin, David, and Francina Irwin. Scottish Painters at Home and Abroad, 1700-1900. London: Faber and Faber, 1975. Takes advantage of the latest scholarly discoveries and contains a lively and well-written section on Raeburn and his influence, as well as making specific comments on many of his paintings. Contains a useful bibliography of books and articles.

Smith, Bill, and Selina Skiipwith. A History of Scottish Art. London: Merrell in association with The Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation, 2003. This overview of Scottish art includes information about Raeburn.

Thomson, Duncan, and Lynne Gladstone-Millar. The Skating Minister: The Story Behind the Painting. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland/National Museums of Scotland, 2004. Originally published in 1997 as The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch by Sir Henry Raeburn. Examines Raeburn’s painting of his friend, the Reverend Robert Walker, ice skating. Explores the relationship between the artist and his subject, why Raeburn painted Walker in this unusual way, and why the painting has become so well known.

Whitley, William T. Art in England. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1928, 1930. Reprint. New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973. A detailed account of the English art world of 1800-1837; proves useful for discussing Raeburn’s relations with the Royal Academy. Corrects certain errors found in earlier studies. Includes numerous contemporary press reactions to Raeburn paintings exhibited in London during this period.