About this artwork
David Martin was first the pupil and then the principal assistant of Allan Ramsay, the leading Scottish portrait painter of the mid-eighteenth century. It was during Ramsay's second visit to Italy that Martin was able to make his own way there, in order to take Ramsay's drawings for display at the Academy of Saint Luke, Rome's principal art academy. Once in Italy, like many artists, he seems to have dabbled in picture dealing, bringing back an important old master painting, Correggio's Head of a Boy.
This self-portrait was painted shortly after Martin's return to Scotland. It gives a sense of the growing personal and artistic confidence that eventually enabled him to establish his own successful portrait painting practice in Edinburgh.
Updated before 2020
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artist:David Martin (1737 - 1797) Scottish
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title:David Martin, 1737 - 1798. Portrait painter (Self-portrait)
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date created:About 1760
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:50.80 x 40.60 cm; Framed: 65.10 x 55.00 x 7.00 cm / 6.00 kg
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1887
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accession number:PG 194
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gallery:
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depicted:
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subject:
David Martin
David Martin
David Martin was born in Anstruther, Fife, the son of a schoolmaster. He trained under Allan Ramsay, working in his fellow Scot's London studio from about 1752. In 1755 he joined Ramsay in Rome and probably returned with him to London in 1757, working as his chief assistant, producing copies of...