James Duff (1776–1857), 4th Earl of Fife

The portrait of James Duff, 4th Earl of Fife, from 1815, now in the University of Dundee Fine Art Collections, depicts a Scottish nobleman who served as a Major-General in the Spanish and later British Army before inheriting the earldom. The Duff family's Morayshire estates made them one of the most powerful families in northeast Scotland, and the 4th Earl's military career — which included service in the Peninsular War — connected his aristocratic standing to the active engagement with the Napoleonic Wars that defined his generation. Raeburn painted the Scottish nobility throughout his career, creating portraits that balanced the formal requirements of aristocratic representation with his own instinct for honest, direct characterization. His approach to noble subjects was notably democratic in effect: he did not differentiate his technique or his psychological engagement based on the sitter's social rank, creating earl's portraits with the same directness he brought to Edinburgh merchants. The University of Dundee's arts collections hold this portrait as evidence of Raeburn's importance to the northeast Scottish aristocracy whose cultural patronage extended from the capital to the provincial universities that were forming Scotland's educated class.

Raeburn renders the earl with aristocratic authority, combining military bearing with noble rank. The portrait’s bold technique captures the sitter’s forceful character with characteristic directness.