Look at the strong backbone and determined eyes of the artist Ann Forbes - to be an independent woman in the eighteenth century was hard work. Ann Forbes, grand-daughter of William Aikman, the portrait painter, studied in Rome before setting up a studio in London. Her society friends shunned her for going into business. Ill and discouraged, she returned to Edinburgh where she established herself as a drawing teacher, a more acceptable occupation for a woman, although she still accepted commissions for portraits whenever she could.