V.
Arrived back in Edinburgh in 1787, Raeburn took a studio in the new town, and, with his enhanced powers and the added prestige due to his sojourn abroad, soon occupied a commanding place. Few agreed with Martin that "the lad in George Street painted better before he went to Italy," for if the majority were unaware of his high artistic gifts, none could be unconscious of the vital and convincing quality of his portraitures. His earlier sitters included some of the most distinguished people in Scotland. Lord President Dundas must have been amongst the very first for he died before the end of the year. Ere long his position was unassailable, and during the five-and-thirty years that followed he painted practically everybody who was anybody. Burns is probably the only great Scotsman of that epoch who was not immortalised by his brush, for the missing likeness, which has been discovered so often, was not painted from life but from Nasmyth's portrait.
From the time he returned home until 1809, when he purchased the adjoining property off St Bernard's, Raeburn lived at Deanhaugh.[[1]] The junction of these small estates enabled him to feu the outlying parts on plans prepared by himself, architecture being one of his hobbies, and his family's connection with them is still marked by such names as Raeburn Place, Ann Street (after his wife), Leslie Place, St Bernard's Crescent, and Deanhaugh Street. Some years earlier continuous increase in the number of his clients had rendered a change of studio desirable, and in 1795 he moved from George Street to 16 (now 32) York Place where he had built a specially designed and spacious studio, with a suite of rooms for the display of recently completed work or of portraits he had painted for himself. At a later date, when exhibitions were inaugurated in Edinburgh (first series 1808-13), he lent the show-rooms to the Society of Artists which organised them. This action was typical of Raeburn's cordial relations with his fellow-artists, most of whom were poor and socially unimportant; and only a year before his death he championed the professional artists when, partly in opposition to the Royal Institution, they proposed to form an Academy. Incidentally also, the letter written on that occasion, which I have transcribed in full in Scottish Painting; Past and Present, gives an indication of the extent of his practice, of how fully he was engaged.
Until 1808 Raeburn's career had been one unbroken success, but in that year, following upon the failure of his son, financial disaster overtook him. The firm of "Henry Raeburn and Company, merchants, Shore, Leith," consisted of Henry Raeburn, Junior, and James Philip Inglis, who had married Anne Leslie, the artist's step-daughter, but neither the Edinburgh Gazette nor the local Directory states the nature of their business. In the proceedings in connection with Raeburn's own bankruptcy, however, he is described as "portrait-painter and underwriter." What underwriter exactly means is uncertain, but it may be that the son was a marine-insurance broker, that Raeburn himself took marine-insurance risks. In any case his ruin seemed complete. Not only did he lose all his savings but he had even to sell the York Place studio, of which he was afterwards only tenant. He failed, paid a composition, and, two years later, proposed settling in London. By those of his biographers who have noticed it at all, this failure and the contemplated removal south have been very closely associated. But a more careful examination of the whole circumstances makes such an assumption rather doubtful. Alexander Cunningham, in a letter written on 16th February 1808, tells a correspondent—"I had a walk of three hours on Sunday with my worthy friend, Raeburn. He had realised nearly £17,000, which is all gone. He has offered a small composition, which he is in hopes will be accepted. He quits this to try his fate in London, which I trust in God will be successful. While I write this I feel the tear start." So far the connection is evident enough. But although the artist received his discharge in June of the same year,[[2]] it was not until two years later that he took active steps towards carrying out his idea.[[3]] The time was highly propitious. Hoppner had just died (23rd January 1810), and Wilkie records in his journal (March 2nd) that he had heard that that artist's house was to be taken for Raeburn. Lawrence was now without a rival in the metropolis, and Raeburn's talent was of a kind which would soon have commanded attention there. The opening was obvious, but Raeburn's reception by the gentlemen of the Royal Academy, when he visited London in May, was not very cordial, and fortunately for Scotland, if not for himself, he was persuaded to remain in Edinburgh. From then onward the fates were kind. To quote his own words, written in 1822, "my business, though it may fall off, cannot admit of enlargement."
Wider recognition also came to him. He had exhibited at the Royal Academy as early as 1792, but it was 1810 before he became a regular contributor, and in 1812 he was elected an Associate, full membership following three years later. Just prior to his advancement to Academician rank, he wrote one of the few letters by him that have been preserved:—"I observe what you say respecting the election of an R.A.; but what am I to do here? They know that I am on their list; if they choose to elect me without solicitation, it will be the more honourable to me, and I will think the more of it; but if it can only be obtained by means of solicitation and canvassing, I must give up all hopes of it, for I would think it unfair to employ those means."
No doubt election was particularly gratifying to Raeburn. Isolated as he was in Edinburgh, where an Academy did not come into existence until some years after his death, it must have been stimulating to receive such tangible assurance of that appreciation of one's fellow-workers which is the most grateful form of admiration to the artist. He reciprocated by offering as his diploma work the impressive portrait of himself, which is now one of the treasures of the National Gallery of Scotland. The rules of the Academy, however, forbade the acceptance of a self-portrait, and in 1821 he gave the "Boy with Rabbit"—a portrait of his step-grandson, but one of his most genre-like pieces. Other Academic diplomas received later were those of the Academies of Florence, New York, and South Carolina.
A year before he died these artistic laurels were supplemented by royal favour. On the occasion of that never-to-be-forgotten event—to those who took part in it—the first visit of a King to Scotland since the Union of Parliaments, Raeburn was presented to George IV. and knighted. His fellow artists marked their appreciation of this fresh distinction by entertaining him to a public dinner, at which the chairman, Alexander Nasmyth, the doyen of the local painters, declared that "they loved him as a man not less than they admired him as an artist." And in the following May, the King appointed him his "limner and painter in Scotland, with all fees, profits, salaries, rights, privileges, and advantages thereto belonging."
Raeburn did not long enjoy these new honours. In July, a day or two after returning from an archaeological excursion in Fifeshire with, amongst others, Sir Walter Scott and Miss Edgeworth, he became suddenly ill, took to bed, and in less than a week was dead.
[[1]] All Raeburn's biographers follow Cunningham in stating that Raeburn succeeded to St Bernard's on the death of his brother in 1787 or 1788. It was not so, however. The intimation in the Edinburgh Evening Courant, of 13th December 1810, reads, "Died on the 6th December Mr William Raeburn, manufacturer, Stockbridge"; and the title deeds of St Bernard's show that the artist purchased it from the trustees of the late Mrs Margaret Ross in October 1809.
[[2]] Henry Raeburn & Co.'s affairs were not settled until March 1810.
[[3]] That his own affairs were not only settled but were again highly prosperous before this is apparent from his having purchased St Bernard's in 1809.