Raeburn, SIR HENRY, R.A., portrait-painter, was born 4th March 1756, at Stockbridge, then a village near Edinburgh, where his father was a manufacturer and mill-owner. His parents died when he was about six years old; and he was educated in George Heriot's Hospital, and apprenticed to James Gilliland, a goldsmith and jeweller in the Parliament Close. While in this employment his turn for art attracted the attention of David Deuchar, the etcher and seal-engraver, who gave him some instruction; and he afterwards studied under David Martin, producing at first water-colour miniatures with such success that he was soon able to devote himself exclusively to portraiture in oils. A careful miniature of Deuchar, still preserved, forms a curious example of Raeburn's earliest style. At the age of twenty-two he married one of his sitters, Ann Edgar, widow of Count Leslie, a lady of means; and, after practising his art for a time in Edinburgh, he resolved to study in Italy. In passing through London he visited Reynolds, who received him kindly, recognising his talent, and furnished him with introductions to Pompeo Battoni and other leading painters in Rome. After remaining two years in Italy he returned and settled in Edinburgh in 1787, the date of his fine portrait of the second Lord President Dundas. He soon received full employment as a portrait-painter, and before long attained acknowledged pre-eminence among the artists working in Scotland. In 1812 he was elected president of the Society of Artists in Edinburgh; in 1814 Associate of the Royal Academy, London; and in the following year full Academician. He was knighted by George IV. during that monarch's visit to Scotland in 1822, and was appointed king's limner for Scotland a few days before his death in Edinburgh on the 8th of July 1823.
Raeburn's style was, to some extent, founded upon that of Reynolds. Like Sir Joshua, he aimed at breadth of effect, a result attained by massing together the lights, and keeping them as far as possible distinct from the shadows, and so making each respectively effective; but he attained his aim in a manner and with a feeling that was characteristic and original. He seldom attempted to produce texture and luminosity of effect by thick impasto and semi-transparent painting, but adopted the opposite mode of painting, in a low tone, with a crisp, definite touch, working his colours with little admixture of any unctuous medium. In its decision and power of handling his style has been justly compared to that of Velasquez. In his portraits of men, in particular, the heads are most vigorously modelled, and the characteristic expression is seized in a singularly simple, direct, and effective manner; but works like the seated portrait of his wife and the portraits of the two Misses Grant Suttie sufficiently prove that he could portray the grace and dignity of comely womanhood. His reputation, always high in his native country, is becoming more widely spread, and his works are now much sought after. Among his sitters, who included almost all the celebrated Scotsmen of his day, were Sir Walter Scott, Lord Melville, Sir David Baird, Henry Mackenzie, Neil Gow, Harry Erskine, Dugald Stewart, Principal Robertson, Lord Jeffrey, and Lord Cockburn. Technically one of his finest and most complete productions is the bust portrait of James Wardrop. Exhibitions of his collected works were held in Edinburgh in 1824 and 1876; and an excellent series of his portraits was included in the Old Masters Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1877. His art is fully represented in the National Gallery of Scotland, and examples of his brush are preserved in the National Gallery, London, and in the Louvre. Numerous engravings have been executed from his portraits.
See Life by his great-grandson, W. R. Andrew (Lond. 1886); Portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn (photographs, edited by Dr John Brown; Elliot, Edin.); Sir Henry Raeburn, a Selection from his Portraits (photogravures, edited by W. E. Henley; Edin. 1890).