David Anderson
Sir Henry Raeburn·1790
Historical Context
Raeburn's David Anderson from 1790 is an early portrait showing the artist developing his mature style in the Edinburgh practice he had established after returning from a formative visit to Rome. Anderson was likely a member of Edinburgh's prosperous merchant or professional class — Raeburn's early Edinburgh practice was built on such clients before his reputation extended to the Scottish nobility and later to international recognition. The 1790 date places this portrait at the beginning of Raeburn's most productive period, when Edinburgh's New Town was attracting a new class of professional and commercial sitters who wanted portraits that reflected their practical worldliness rather than aristocratic convention.
Technical Analysis
The early portrait shows Raeburn developing his characteristic style, with strong light creating dramatic facial modeling. The technique is assured but slightly more blended than his later, bolder square-touch manner.
Provenance
Painted for Warren Hastings [1732-1818], Daylesford House, Gloucestershire, probably upon whose death it was returned to the sitter;[1] by descent to Captain David Anderson [1867-1944], Bourhouse, Dunbar, East Lothian [Scotland].[2] (Dott & Co., Edinburgh); sold 1900 to (P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London); purchased October 1903 by Dr. Eissler [probably one of the brothers, Dr. Gottfried Eissler, 1862-1924, or Dr. Hermann Eissler, 1860-1953, both Vienna].[3] purchased c. 1924 by Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from Estate of Peter A.B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, after purchase by funds of the Estate; gift 1942 to NGA. [1] David Anderson (1750-1825), of St. Germains, near Tranent, East Lothian, served in India with Warren Hastings, the first governor-general. The two became lifelong friends, and when they returned to England in 1785 they agreed to exchange portraits of each other. Anderson wrote to Hastings on 7 July 1790 that he had begun sitting to Raeburn (British Library Add. MS. 45,418:fol. 375). According to Kathleen Bliss, London, who was married to a direct descendant of David Anderson, the Raeburn portrait was returned to David Anderson either after Warren Hastings' impeachment trial, which lasted from 1784 to 1795, or after Hastings' death (letter, Mrs. Bliss to John Walker, NGA chief curator, 16 April 1947, in NGA curatorial files). Hastings, in turn, had originally wanted Sir Joshua Reynolds to paint his portrait, but eventually commissioned Lemuel Abbot and sent the finished painting to Anderson in early 1797. Although John Hayes (in _British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue_, Cambridge, England, 1992: 194) writes that the original Abbot portrait is now in the Victoria Memorial Museum in Calcutta, this is not the case. Abbot's first portrait of Hastings has remained in the possession of Anderson's descendants, and in 2003 was owned by David Anderson's great-great-great-granddaughter, Margaret Elizabeth Anderson Aynscough (Mrs. James Vernon Aynscough). The painting in Calcutta is one of at least eight copies made by Abbot after the original version, and Hastings also distributed copies by other artists (see correspondence in 2003 with Stephen Aynscough, in NGA curatorial files). [2] The provenance from Captain Anderson to Dr. Eissler is recorded in James Greig, _Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A._, London, 1911: 37. [3] Colnaghi's stock books (Roderic Thesiger, letter, 23 September 1969, in NGA curatorial files). The painting was not included in the sale of Gottfreid Eissler's estate in Vienna, 6-7 May 1925. There was also a sale of the Eissler collection at Pisko in Vienna in March 1908 that included a Raeburn, but it has not been identified.
