There are several Aikman self-portraits in existence. The artist was son to the Laird of Cairney, and studied painting, first in Edinburgh with John Baptiste de Medina and later in Rome. He was a friend of the elder Allan Ramsay, the poet, who addressed verses to Aikman, and in London, where Aikman lived in the later part of his life, he mixed with the chief literary figures of the day, including the poets Alexander Pope and James Thomson.