'Once in a generation' discovery as lost Robert Burns portrait found after 200 years
The painting was lost shortly after it was commissioned
A lost portrait of Robert Burns by renowned artist Sir Henry Raeburn has been found after more than 200 years.
The painting, which was discovered in an auction last year with a guide price of £300 to £500 as part of a house clearance - will go on public display for the first time to celebrate Burns Night at National Galleries Scotland: National.
Commissioned in 1803 - at a fee of 20 guineas - by the publishers Cadell & Davies, the painting was to be engraved for future editions of Burns’s books, but has not been seen since.
In came up for auction in Wimbledon as part of a clearance of a house in Surrey.
Dr William Zachs, director of Blackie House Library and Museum in Edinburgh and long-term Burns scholar and enthusiast, understood the potential significance of the painting up for auction and purchased it for £68,000, believing it could be the elusive missing artwork.
It has since been cleaned, and examined by experts, who confirm that it is, indeed, the lost Raeburn portrait.
James Holloway, former director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery from 1997 to 2012, said: “This is a once in a generation discovery: thrilling for lovers of both Burns and Raeburn.”
The original 1787 portrait of Burns was painted by the Edinburgh-born artist Alexander Nasmyth as part of a marketing strategy for the second edition of Burns’s breakthrough book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. This painting, which is now recognised across the world, is part of Scotland’s national art collection.
Painted seven years after Burns’ death aged 37, the newly-found portrait was to be based on the original painting by Nasmyth. Burns’s close friend Alexander Cunningham, the custodian of the Nasmyth painting, agreed to the project, with the condition that it was painted by Raeburn.
In 1924 TCF Brotchie, the director of Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums, wrote that the painting’s discovery would be “an event bordering upon the sensational”.
The two paintings will now be displayed alongside each other.
Dr Zachs said: “This week at Burns Suppers in Scotland and around the world we toast the Immortal Memory of the poet.
“Now we have a new immortal visual memory – a once lost painting by Sir Henry Raeburn, the Scottish great portrait artist, that depicts Robert Burns not just as a genius poet but as a celebrated (and handsome) Scotsman whose significance would endure “till a' the seas gang dry’.”
Lesley Stevenson, Senior Conservator, paintings, at the National Galleries of Scotland said: “Raeburn’s expressive, seemingly effortless brushwork, the characteristic warm palette, soft, atmospheric lighting and sensitive rendering of the instantly recognisable Robert Burns, are a joy.
“This is a significant discovery and one we can all celebrate.”
Dr Duncan Thomson, former Keeper of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery between 1982 and 1997 and curator of the last major exhibition on Sir Henry Raeburn, at National Galleries of Scotland, said: “The rediscovery of this portrait of Burns, after having disappeared for two hundred years, is of enormous significance, linking the poet with Scotland's greatest artist.
“Although Raeburn was working from an image made by another painter, the portrait has that wonderful freshness of observation that marks Raeburn's work at its best. It is more than likely that Raeburn had seen Burns in his heyday in Edinburgh a decade earlier, and had observed that glowing eye that had so impressed the young Walter Scott.”
He added: “The result is a portrait that speaks in an entirely new way of the warmth, the sensuality and the profound intelligence that we find in Burns's poetry.”
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.