Note.
We have just had an opportunity of examining the portraits of Sir James Clerk, the third Baronet, and Elizabeth Cleghorn, his wife, in the possession of Miss Eliott Lockhart, at 17 Rutland Street, Edinburgh. In each the figure is seen to the waist, within a painted oval. The Baronet is clad in a yellowish pink gown, worn over a red vest, with the shirt unbuttoned at the throat. The face, turned slightly to the right, has clear-cut features, full blue eyes, and dark eyebrows, the hair being entirely concealed by a blue cap. The left hand is laid on the top of a folio volume, resting on a table to the right, which is covered with a brilliantly patterned cloth; and a green curtain appears behind to the left. In the portrait of Lady Clerk the face is seen in three-quarters to the left, and has pale yellow hair and eyebrows, and blue eyes. The costume is a white dress worn low at the throat, and a blue mantle. A tree-trunk appears behind the head, and a wooded landscape to the right. Each picture is signed with the name of a portrait-painter which we have not elsewhere met with—“Gul: Mosman pingebat 1739.” The handling of the works is hard and definite.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A three-quarters length portrait of the younger Aikman, with a grave earnest face, clad in a long-skirted grey coat, and holding a sketch in his hand, is in the possession of the representative of the family at The Ross, Hamilton. It is an excellent example of the elder Aikman’s portraiture.