John Stirling of Kippendavie (1742–1816), and His Youngest Daughter, Jean Wilhelmina (1804–1859)

John Stirling of Kippendavie and his youngest daughter Jean Wilhelmina, painted by Raeburn in 1823 — one of the last years of his life — captures a touching generational tenderness. Stirling, seventy-one years old at the time of the portrait, is depicted with his daughter born when he was in his sixties. Raeburn's late portraits show an increasingly loose, broad handling that some critics find expressive and others see as declining control; but this intimate grouping of aged father and small child retains the psychological directness that was always his chief virtue.

The double portrait format challenges Raeburn's typically frontal approach: the relationship between the elderly man and the young child requires compositional invention. His late handling is broader than earlier work — strokes more evident, transitions less smooth — but the emotional connection between the figures reads clearly.