This portrait of Elizabeth Hamilton (1756–1816) portrays the writer in a seated position with her right arm resting on a desk. She absent-mindedly plays with an item, perhaps a snuff box or miniature, and appears to be engaged in conversation, her mouth partially open. Visible behind her on the writing desk is a quill and ink-well. She is dressed in a rich, crimson dress with a ruffled collar and what appears to be a crimson headscarf. She also wears a maroon shawl or cloak with a gold trim and is seated against a dimly lit grey background.
This oil on canvas has been painted on twill weave canvas, a material often used by Sir Henry Raeburn. Raeburn would have noted the use of twill, a canvas woven with distinctive diagonal ridges, by the Old Masters while visiting Rome. As art historian John Dick suggests, the artist may have used it for the decorative quality of the weave of the canvas showing through the paint (Dick 1997, p.42). This feature is discernible in numerous works by Raeburn, including his portrait of Niel Gow, also in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery collection. Raeburn almost certainly obtained his pigments from commercial suppliers, as materials in the nineteenth century were increasingly mass-produced, though he may have specified certain characteristics and paid for them accordingly (Dick 1997, p.43).
Hamilton was a novelist and essayist, born in Belfast, probably on 25 July 1756, though the date is often given as 1758 (Perkins 2004). She was the third and youngest child of Charles Hamilton, a Scottish merchant, and his wife, Katherine Mackay. Upon her father’s death, Hamilton was sent to live with her paternal aunt, Mrs. Marshall, and her husband near Stirling. Hamilton’s intellectual pursuits were not approved of by her aunt, and Hamilton recounts one episode when her copy of Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism was hidden from visitors so that they would not know what she was reading (Perkins 2004). Hamilton maintained close relationships with her siblings, in particular her brother Charles who she lived with in London between 1788 and 1791. Charles died from tuberculosis in 1792 and, as Pam Perkins documents in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, his death is regarded as a catalyst for her career.
Her early literary oeuvre consists of satire of contemporary British society, including her first major work, Translations of the Letters of a Hindoo Rajah (1796), which was written partially as a tribute to her brother (Perkins 2004). Hamilton was greatly interested in education, particularly girls’ education, and engaged with this topic through both fictional and non-fictional works. Hamilton's most successful work was The Cottagers of Glenburnie (1808), a text which demonstrated her knowledge of rural life in Scotland (A Companion Guide to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery 1999, p.114). Hamilton settled in Edinburgh in 1804 where she formed friendships with a number of other literary figures, most notably Sir Walter Scott. She was also a dedicated philanthropist, participating in charitable pursuits in Edinburgh including for a House of Industry which supported struggling women.
This portrait departs from Raeburn’s typical approach to female sitters where his interests are focused toward creating the classical, female outline in his compositions. This is expressed in the portraits of Frances Harriet Wynne, Mrs James Hamilton Kames 1786 – 1860 1811 and Helen Graham, Lady Montgomery (d.1828) 1816, two works painted around the same time as Hamilton’s. In these portraits, both women are posed and dressed elegantly in white dresses, establishing an almost sculptural presence. Hamilton’s portrait, in this case, more closely resembles Raeburn’s portraits celebrating male literary figures and scholars, for example, John Clerk of Eldin, Lord Eldin 1757-1832 c. 1815. A crouching Venus figurine visible on his desk, Clerk holds a pair of spectacles in his right hand while his left hand rests a book, objects alluding to his position as a judge and as an accomplished draughtsman, as art historian Duncan Thomson has observed (Thomson 1997, p.170). Hamilton, who is not dressed in typical female costume or formally posed, is similarly portrayed as an intellectual in conversation, her quill and ink pot indicative of her literary accomplishments.
Further reading
Duncan Thomson, The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn 1756-1823, exhibition catalogue, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh 1997.
John Dick, ‘Raeburn’s Methods and Materials’ in Duncan Thomson, The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn 1756-1823, exhibition catalogue, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh 1997.
A Companion Guide to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 1999.
Pam Perkins, ‘Hamilton, Elizabeth (1756?–1816)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12062, accessed 25 Oct 2016].
Kate O’Donoghue
The University of Edinburgh
October 2016