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Artist or Maker: Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A. (1756-1823)

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Exhibited: Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1863, no.10 (lent by A. Wauchope).
Edinburgh,
The Raeburn Exhibition
, 1876, no.162 (lent by Captain W. Wauchope).
London, Burlington House, 1908, no.166.

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Stylistically, this portrait is likely to date to the last decade and a half of the artist's life. The format of the canvas; the way in which the sitter is presented; and the Romantic, freely executed landscape with its greenish-blue sky, are all characteristic of Raeburn's late style. Raeburn began to produce portraits that were larger than conventional canvas sizes, and presenting his sitters in a more dramatic manner with costly furnishings towards the end of the first decade of the 19th century. These changes may be understood in part as an attempt to increase the value of his works, on account of his bankruptcy of 1808.

The dating of this portrait on stylistic grounds to c.1808-1823 negates the traditional identification of the sitter as Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie. Nevertheless, the sitter is likely to be a member of the Wauchope family. Several members of the family sat to Raeburn, including James Wauchope (1767-1797), John Wauchope of Edmonstone (1742-1810), his wife Mrs Anne Wauchope of Edmonstone (1740-1811) and John Wauchope W.S. (1751-1828) (National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Mackie, op.cit, nos. 736, 737, 738 and 739 respectively).

There would appear to be three versions of this portrait type: two three-quarter-lengths and a head and shoulders (29 x 24 1/4 in.). The latter was sold at Christie's on 13 February 1981 (lot 46) when the sitter was wrongly identified as E. E. Livingstone (see Mackie, op.cit, no. 468). The information relating to the two larger versions is presently inextricably interwoven. There are numerous minor differences between the present three-quarter-length and that formerly with the Newhouse Gallery, New York.

Raeburn had been encouraged at the outset of his career by Sir James Hunter Blair, 1st bt. (1741-1787). This portrait entered the Blairquhan collection in 1973.

We are grateful to David Mackie (St. Catharine's College, Cambridge) for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.