Every picture tells a story, and that’s especially true at the Georgian House. The artworks around the house are gateways into the lifestyles, personalities, aspirations and artistry of Scotland at a key time in its history.
Through the Georgian House art collection, it’s possible to glimpse stories of love, death, war, broken hearts, ambition, wealth, trade and much more besides. It’s also an opportunity to see world-class art in the way that it was originally enjoyed, up close and personal in Edinburgh’s drawing and dining rooms.
In a five-storey townhouse packed with art, it’s not easy to pick out a handful of works. However, the National Trust for Scotland team there have highlighted a few favourites that illustrate themes, people and stories to watch for in the wider collections.
The drawing room
Our art tour begins in the first-floor drawing room. As the scene of parties and social gatherings, it would have housed some of the Lamont family’s most prized art, chosen to impress friends, neighbours, business connections and potential suitors. This is people showing off their best lives, an 18th-century taster of 21st-century social media.
A favourite of the team is Allan Ramsay’s Portrait of an Unknown Lady, whose eyes appear to follow visitors around the room. Ramsay and his studio were known for their ability to capture clothing and fashion, and the Lady’s formal dress would have been a brand-new style when this was painted. Sheonagh Martin, Visitor Services Manager, points out: ‘But it is her silk collar or choker that is truly haute couture. The style was made wildly fashionable in France in 1745 by King Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour. As an early adopter of a silk collar, the Lady probably wanted to be part of the ’portrait-painting’ age.’
To the Lady’s right is an early 19th-century landscape of Glasgow Green, by John Knox. But why have a landscape of Glasgow in a New Town drawing room? Because the inhabitants of these drawing rooms typically wanted to demonstrate their wealth, and at this point in Scottish history, Glasgow’s trading connections and industries were often the source of it.
On the left-hand side of the mantel, we’re back in Edinburgh, with a landscape of St Bernard’s Well, by Alexander Nasmyth. As well as painting the Well, Nasmyth designed it; his choice of Greco-Roman temple design illustrates the enthusiasm for Classical antiquity in the Enlightenment period.
The parlour
Nasmyth, best known today as a landscape painter, began his career working on portraits in Allan Ramsay’s studio. His full-length portrait of Jane Cockburn Ross of Shandwick shows her in an outdoor setting, making good use of his landscape talents. Jane was heir to the large Shandwick Estate – and Nasmyth’s choice of landscape probably references one of their properties – but she sadly died in a house fire in the New Town.
Our other choices in the parlour are smaller in scale, the first of them an engraving of King George III, based on a Ramsay portrait. ‘It’s always a favourite for the guides to point out to visitors because people always assume the surround is lace. They’re amazed to discover what it is,’ explains Robbie MacRae, Visitor Services Supervisor. In fact, the surround is a delicate filigree of tiny strips of paper, a beautiful example of the scissorwork that was a popular pastime.
Also in the parlour is John Kay’s caricature of John Wesley, founder of the Methodists, and two companions. Kay, a self-taught engraver, is a useful name to have on your radar because he drew everything and everyone at the time, leaving hundreds of etchings of life in Georgian Edinburgh, from court cases to royal visits to caricatures of the leading lights of the day.
The dining room
Go downstairs to the dining room and you’re back in the world of showstopper portraits. One of the grandest is the portrait of Helen Colt née Stewart and her son Adam, by David Martin (also a pupil of Ramsay). Helen danced with Bonnie Prince Charlie at his victory ball after the Battle of Prestonpans, and he’s said to have given her his royal ermine and a ruby ring. Martin, who is well-known for his portraits of Jacobites, has included the ermine here. Under UV lighting, explains Robbie MacRae, it is possible to see where an item on her breast has been deliberately painted over; this could well have been a Jacobite brooch or rose that her family later chose to obscure.
On the same wall, there’s another David Martin portrait of Helen, painted around 35 years later, with her granddaughter, Grace.
Opposite Helen Colt is Henry Raeburn’s portrait of Margaret Buchanan, the wife of Revd Dr Walter Buchanan, a minister at the Canongate and a colleague of Raeburn’s famous Skating Minister, Robert Walker. Margaret and her husband were noted supporters of the abolition of slavery. ‘Raeburn’s brush strokes in this portrait are bold and intuitive, with a confidence which marked him as the premier painter of the Scottish school. We can see here how Raeburn’s expert hand is able to describe the flesh tones and fabric with superb ease,’ says Cameron Webster, Visitor Services Assistant.
Our third dining room pick is a family group by an unknown artist, which Robbie MacRae describes as ‘Georgian Photoshop’. Many portrait artists at the time were so popular and busy that they kept pre-painted backgrounds in their studios. Sitters chose a background that suited them – for example, a landscape that could suggest their country estate – and the painter or his assistants added them into it.
The bedchamber
Our whistlestop tour of the Georgian House finishes in the bedchamber, the favourite room of Emily Jones, Collections Care Assistant, who says: ‘The engravings in here are interesting as a group because they show art being mass-marketed, and also the prevailing themes that people are interested in. And especially in the Georgian period, there’s an interesting conversation about the way that art contained symbols and messaging.’
One of these engravings is Jupiter Disguised as Diana with Callisto, based on a drawing by Angelica Kauffman. In Classical mythology, Callisto was one of Diana’s virginal hunting attendants; Jupiter disguised himself in order to seduce her, with the result that Callisto was expelled from Diana’s circle. ‘It’s a good example of how Classical imagery included same-sex relationships, and how gender transformations were made respectable in the Georgian period due to their associations with antiquity,’ notes Indigo Dunphy Smith, Visitor Services Assistant.
Our second pick in the bedchamber is Woman Reading to Three Children, by Francesco Bartolozzi, generally believed to be a mourning portrait for the child who is draped in a black cloak. At the time, these portraits, showing the child who has passed away still sitting with their family, were considered an important part of some families’ grieving process.
Georgian Edinburgh in close-up
As we said at the beginning, this is just a tiny selection from the collections that the Trust cares for and shares at the Georgian House. Our volunteer guides there can point out their own favourites and the stories and codes they contain. It’s an ideal way to time-travel around Scotland’s rich heritage and histories.