James 'Ossian' Macpherson MP (1736-1796)

Reynolds painted James 'Ossian' Macpherson around 1772, depicting the controversial Scottish poet and forger at the height of his fame and notoriety. Macpherson had claimed in the 1760s to have translated the epic poems of a third-century Gaelic bard named Ossian, publishing them as Fingal (1762) and Temora (1763). The Ossian poems became an international sensation, profoundly influencing the development of European Romanticism — Goethe, Napoleon, and Schiller were among their admirers — but the authenticity of Macpherson's 'translations' was almost immediately challenged by Samuel Johnson, who denounced them as fabrications. Johnson's friendship with Reynolds placed the painter in an interesting position when it came to portraying Macpherson: Reynolds could hardly have been unaware of Johnson's contempt for the Scotsman's literary fraud, yet professional obligations and the conventions of portrait painting required him to present the sitter with dignity. Now in a National Trust property, the portrait documents one of the most significant literary controversies of the eighteenth century through the eyes of its leading portraitist.

The portrait presents the writer with intellectual authority. Reynolds's handling creates an image of literary distinction.