Until George Jamesone established his successful career, the profession of portrait painting in Scotland had been dominated by painters from abroad. Born in Aberdeen, Jamesone served his apprenticeship in Edinburgh as a painter of decorative interiors. He set up a studio in Aberdeen and later opened another in the High Street in Edinburgh, painting portraits of aristocrats and wealthy mer­chants as well as lawyers and academics. Jamesone achieved considerable success and eventually owned several houses and estates. Among his most accomplished works is a fine self-portrait (also in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery) which shows him dressed as a gentleman artist, pointing confidently to an array of his own works in the background (fig.25).

In 1633 Jamesone was commissioned to oversee the decorations for the visit of King Charles I to Edinburgh, for which he painted a series of imaginary portraits of Scottish monarchs. The following year he began work for his most important patron, Sir Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, who commissioned invented portraits of his female ancestors as well as portraits of contemporary nobility with Campbell fam­ily connections. The Campbell of Glenorchy family tree was painted in 1635. 

The format is borrowed from representations of the Tree of Jesse, a common subject in Christian art which derives from the Book of Isaiah in the Bible and shows the genealogy of Christ as a tree or vine spreading its branches. In Jamesone’s picture the recumbent figure is the family patriarch, Duncan Campbell of Lochow, who died in 1453. Portraits of suc­cessive lairds are fixed to the trunk of what appears to be a cherry tree while the various medallions on the branches represent the fruitful spread of their family connections. Sir Colin himself, the 8th Laird, is second from the top; above him the final portrait is incomplete or defaced, perhaps reflecting uncertainty about the succession; Sir Colin had no progeny and was followed by his brother Robert.

Jamesone’s patron was known to be fascinated by genealogy, but this remark­able painting is more than just a decorative piece of family history. This cadet branch of the wider Clan Campbell had estab­lished positions of power across lands that encompassed large swathes of the southern Highlands. Sir Colin’s predeces­sor, Sir Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy, known as ‘Black Duncan of the Cowl’, was notoriously ruthless at acquiring land. Advantageous marriages and large fam­ilies were a crucial part of the strategy to expand the influence of the clan; Duncan had fathered at least fourteen children across several marriages. Jamesone’s pic­ture boldly declares the noble lineage of the Campbells of Glenorchy and is intended to impress viewers as a demonstration of the power of kinship. It is stretching definitions to describe this work as a mas­terpiece, but it is a striking and unusual work and its inclusion here reminds us that the Portrait Gallery collects images not just for their aesthetic merits but also as documents of Scottish history.

This text was originally published in 100 Masterpieces: National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2015.