Patrick Grant, Lord Elchies (1690–1754)

Ramsay's portrait of Patrick Grant, Lord Elchies (1690-1754), at the Signet Library in Edinburgh alongside his portrait of Lord Milton, documents his role as the primary portrait painter of the Scottish legal establishment of the mid-eighteenth century. Grant was a Senator of the College of Justice — a judge of the Court of Session, Scotland's supreme civil court — and a distinguished legal scholar whose decisions were published in important case reports. The Signet Library, as the library of the Society of Writers to the Signet, collected portraits of distinguished Scottish legal figures, and the presence of both Elchies and Milton there reflects Ramsay's near-monopoly on recording the Scottish judiciary of the 1740s and 1750s. Grant's portrait, painted at some point before his death in 1754, shows Ramsay's facility with judicial costume and legal professional characterisation.

A Court of Session judge's portrait required description of the specific Scottish judicial costume — the red robes of the Court of Session bench, the full-bottomed wig of judicial formality, and the fur trim that distinguished the Scottish from the English judicial dress. Ramsay's handling of the red robes, with their distinctive nap and weight, demonstrates his ability to adapt his textile technique across different fabric types.