Allan Ramsay was one of the first Scottish artists to establish a truly international reputation. Named after his father, the renowned Scottish poet, Allan Ramsay trained in Edinburgh and London and completed his artistic education in Italy. In 1738 he established a successful studio in London, eventually becoming painter to King George III in 1761. Although his career was based in London, he made several extended trips back to Edinburgh where he also kept a studio and maintained contact with some of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.

This painting is Ramsay’s acknowledged masterpiece and exemplifies the natural, informal portraiture that he developed in the 1750s. His first wife, Anne Bayne, had died in childbirth in 1743. Some eight years later, on a return visit to Edinburgh, he encountered the young Margaret Lindsay. In 1752 they married against the wishes of her father, Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick, a prominent Scottish baronet who objected to a socially inappropriate match with a mere artist. The couple eloped to London causing a family rift that was not healed until after Sir Alexander’s death ten years later.

Ramsay’s portrait of his second wife probably dates from the late 1750s. It is an intensely personal and intimate picture which may have been painted to celebrate the birth of the couple’s second daughter Charlotte in 1758. Against the background of family difficulties and also the dangers of childbirth which Ramsay knew all too well, the artist had every reason to celebrate his wife’s continued health and happiness. She is shown as if interrupted while arranging a posy in a china vase. From the rendering of her fresh complexion and intelligent eyes to the treatment of the plum-coloured dress and delicate patterns of her lace fichu, every detail seems to have been lovingly painted in a dazzling display of Ramsay’s technical skill. The more we look, the more obvious it becomes that the work is artfully composed with the balancing of light and dark and the carefully contrived patterns and shapes. But the final effect remains one of apparent spontaneity, a fleeting moment captured in a portrait that exudes tenderness and affection.

This picture entered the national collection with the important bequest of Lady Murray of Henderland in 1861. Lady Murray was the widow of one of Allan Ramsay’s nephews and had inherited an important collection of his work. Prior to this bequest, Lady Murray had already gifted an outstanding collection of drawings and prints by Ramsay to the Gallery in honour of her late husband.

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