(_See_ page 30.)
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.