Allan Ramsay was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 portrait-painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

Life and career

Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd.

From the age of twenty he studied in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 under the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 painter Hans Hysing

Hans Hysing

Hans Huyssing or Hans Hysing portrait-painter, born at Stockholm in Sweden, came to England in 1700 as assistant to his fellow Swede Michael Dahl, the portrait-painter, with whom he lived for many years....

, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, where he worked for three years under Francesco Solimena

Francesco Solimena

Francesco Solimena was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen.-Biography:Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino....

 and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi

Francesco Fernandi

Francesco Fernandi , also known as Imperiali, was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period.Born in Milan, he initially apprenticed with the painter for the Borromeo family, Carlo Vimercati. After a spell in Palermo, of which little is known, he moved to Rome sometime around 1705...

). On his return in 1738 he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden

Duncan Forbes of Culloden

Duncan Forbes was a Scottish politician, and supporter of the House of Hanover.-Life:Born and educated in Inverness. His father owned the estate of Culloden and was MP for Nairnshire....

 and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll

Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll

Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, 1st Earl of Ilay was a Scottish nobleman, politician, lawyer, businessman and soldier...

, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland

Royal Bank of Scotland

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...

 banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater

Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater

Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater , known as Lord Francis Egerton until 1748, was a British nobleman, the younger son of the 1st Duke...

. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill, contributed to render him popular. His only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson

Thomas Hudson (painter)

Thomas Hudson was an English portrait painter in the 18th century. He was born in 1701 in the West Country of the United Kingdom. His exact birthplace is unknown...

, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken

Joseph Van Aken

Joseph Van Aken, a Flemish artist, who was born in 1709 at Antwerp, who passed a great part of his life in England. He was employed by eminent landscape painters to paint the costumes of the figures in their pictures, in which he was very skilful, and thereby acquired the name of'Schneider van Aken'...

. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684–1737), and Mary Carstairs (1695?–1759). None of their 3 children survived childhood, and she died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them.

One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick and Amelia Murray (granddaughter to David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and sister to the naval officer John Lindsay

John Lindsay (admiral)

Admiral Sir John Lindsay KB was a British naval officer of the 18th century, and the father of Dido Elizabeth Belle.-Family:...

). He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, though her father never forgave her for marrying an artist. Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage as well as his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100 which would increase ‘as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing’ and that his only motive for the marriage was ‘my love for your Daughter, who, I am sensible, is entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her’. There were three surviving children from their long and happy marriage, Amelia (1755–1813), Charlotte (1758–1818?), and John (1768–1845).

Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754–1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli

Tivoli, Italy

Tivoli , the classical Tibur, is an ancient Italian town in Lazio, about 30 km east-north-east of Rome, at the falls of the Aniene river where it issues from the Sabine hills...

, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites, and (to earn an income) painting Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

ists' portraits. This and other trips to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, he was in 1761 appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principal Painter in Ordinary

Principal Painter in Ordinary

The title of Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King or Queen of England or, later, Great Britain, was awarded to a number of artists, nearly all mainly portraitists. It was different to the role of Serjeant Painter, and similar to the earlier role of "King's Painter"...

 to George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

, beating Hudson to the post; and so fully employed was he on the royal portraits which the king was in the habit of presenting to ambassadors and colonial governors, that he was forced to take advantage of the services of a host of assistants—of whom David Martin

David Martin (artist)

David Martin was a British painter and engraver. Born in Fife, he studied in London and Italy, before gaining a reputation as a portrait painter.-Family:...

 and Philip Reinagle

Philip Reinagle

Philip Reinagle was an English animal, landscape and botanical painter.- Biography :Philip Reinagle entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1769, and afterwards became a pupil of Allan Ramsay , whom he assisted in the numerous portraits of George III and Queen Charlotte...

 are the best known.

He gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits, his health shattered by an accidental dislocation of the right arm and his second wife's death in 1782. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time, and then started for his beloved Italy, leaving behind him a series of fifty royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken. He died at Dover on 10 August 1784.

Art

Among his most satisfactory productions are some of his earlier ones, such as the full-length of the duke of Argyll, and the numerous bust-portraits of Scottish gentlemen and their ladies which he executed before settling in London. They are full of both grace and individuality; the features show excellent draughtsmanship; and the flesh-painting is firm and sound in method, though frequently tending a little to hardness and opacity. His full-length of Lady Mary Coke is remarkable for the skill and delicacy with which the white satin drapery is managed; while in the portrait of his brown-eyed second wife Margaret, in the Scottish National Gallery

National Gallery of Scotland

The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...

, we have a sweetness and tenderness which shows the painter at his highest. The portrait of his wife also shows the influence of French art, an influence which helped greatly to form the practice of Ramsay, and which is even more clearly visible in the large collection of his sketches in the possession of the Royal Scottish Academy

Royal Scottish Academy

The Royal Scottish Academy is a Scottish organisation that promotes contemporary Scottish art. Founded in 1826, as the Royal Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, the RSA maintains a unique position in Scotland as an independently funded institution led by eminent artists and...

 and the Board of Trustees, Edinburgh. Indeed, all his later portraits are characterised by their French elegance and soft colours.

Paintings

Ramsay has paintings in the collection of a few British institutions including Sheffield, Derby Art Gallery

Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Derby Museum and Art Gallery was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The collection includes a whole gallery displaying the paintings of Joseph Wright of Derby; there is also a large...

 (attributed), Glasgow Museum and Newstead Abbey

Newstead Abbey

Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, England, originally an Augustinian priory, is now best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron.-Monastic foundation:The priory of St...

.

Abolitionism and Queen Charlotte's paintings

Allan Ramsay was a noted abolitionist and campaigner for the abolition of slavery.

Mario de Valdes y Cocom, a historian of the African diaspora, has argued that in several paintings of Queen Charlotte

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the Queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King George III...

 Ramsay deliberately tended to emphasize "mulatto

Mulatto

Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...

 features" which the queen supposedly inherited from a 16th Century African ancestor.

Some of these paintings were reportedly, sent on to the colonies to be used by abolitionists as a de facto support for their cause - i.e., that Africans ought not to be kept in servitude or considered "inferior" when the Queen herself was (at least partially) one of them.

External links

• Works in the National Galleries of Scotland
• Nigel Warburton on the significance of two portraits of Hume and Rousseau
• Art "4" "2"-Day - Collection of Short Biographies
• Web Gallery of Art - more examples of Ramsay's work