Portrait of Hugh Hope

c. 1810

Henry Raeburn

(Scottish, 1756–1823)

Culture

Scotland

Medium

oil on canvas

Measurements

Framed: 94.5 x 82 x 8 cm (37 3/16 x 32 5/16 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 75 x 61 cm (29 1/2 x 24 in.)

Credit Line

Gift in honor of Jane Taft Ingalls on the occasion of the Museum's Seventy-fifth Anniversary 1991.133

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Location

203B British Painting and Decorative Arts

Did You Know?

Sir Henry Raeburn was the portrait painter for King George IV of Scotland.

Description

Henry Raeburn created this likeness of fellow Edinburgh native Hugh Hope before Hope departed for India, where he worked as a civil servant for the renowned East India Company (a British joint-stock company founded in 1600 to trade in the Indian Ocean). This painting hung in the drawing room of Hope’s estate, Pinkie House in Scotland, until 1928. Although greatly influenced by his English predecessor Joshua Reynolds, Raeburn worked in a looser style, more like the work of his younger contemporary Thomas Lawrence. This portrait is painted directly on the canvas without any preliminary drawing, giving it an informal, spontaneous air.