David Pitcairn (1749–1809), Physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital

David Pitcairn, Physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital from 1850 is a later copy or version of John Hoppner's portrait, made well after both artist and sitter had died. Such posthumous institutional copies were created for hospitals, learned societies, and colleges that wished to record distinguished former members whose original portraits resided elsewhere. Pitcairn was a significant medical figure who contributed to identifying typhus as a distinct disease and to clinical teaching at Barts, one of the oldest hospitals in the world. Hoppner was a leading portrait painter in the generation before Thomas Lawrence, admired for combining Gainsborough's atmospheric refinement with Reynolds's formal compositional authority. This later copy preserves the likeness for institutional memory while the 1850 date suggests a commemorative purpose connected to the hospital's historical record.

The portrait follows the original's composition while the later date of execution may introduce subtle differences in technique from Hoppner's original handling.