Arrived back in Edinburgh in 1787, Raeburn took a studio in the new
town, and, with his enhanced powers and the added prestige due to his
sojourn abroad, soon occupied a commanding place. Few agreed with
Martin that "the lad in George Street painted better before he went to
Italy," for if the majority were unaware of his high artistic gifts,
none could be unconscious of the vital and convincing quality of his
portraitures. His earlier sitters included some of the most
distinguished people in Scotland. Lord President Dundas must have been
amongst the very first for he died before the end of the year. Ere
long his position was unassailable, and during the five-and-thirty
years that followed he painted practically everybody who was anybody.
Burns is probably the only great Scotsman of that epoch who was not
immortalised by his brush, for the missing likeness, which has been
discovered so often, was not painted from life but from Nasmyth's
portrait.
From the time he returned home until 1809, when he purchased the
adjoining property off St Bernard's, Raeburn lived at Deanhaugh.[1]
The junction of these small estates enabled him to feu the outlying
parts on plans prepared by himself, architecture being one of his
hobbies, and his family's connection with them is still marked by such
names as Raeburn Place, Ann Street (after his wife), Leslie Place, St
Bernard's Crescent, and Deanhaugh Street. Some years earlier
continuous increase in the number of his clients had rendered a change
of studio desirable, and in 1795 he moved from George Street to 16 (now
32) York Place where he had built a specially designed and spacious
studio, with a suite of rooms for the display of recently completed
work or of portraits he had painted for himself. At a later date, when
exhibitions were inaugurated in Edinburgh (first series 1808-13), he
lent the show-rooms to the Society of Artists which organised them.
This action was typical of Raeburn's cordial relations with his
fellow-artists, most of whom were poor and socially unimportant; and
only a year before his death he championed the professional artists
when, partly in opposition to the Royal Institution, they proposed to
form an Academy. Incidentally also, the letter written on that
occasion, which I have transcribed in full in _Scottish Painting; Past
and Present_, gives an indication of the extent of his practice, of how
fully he was engaged.
Until 1808 Raeburn's career had been one unbroken success, but in that
year, following upon the failure of his son, financial disaster
overtook him. The firm of "Henry Raeburn and Company, merchants,
Shore, Leith," consisted of Henry Raeburn, Junior, and James Philip
Inglis, who had married Anne Leslie, the artist's step-daughter, but
neither the _Edinburgh Gazette_ nor the local Directory states the
nature of their business. In the proceedings in connection with
Raeburn's own bankruptcy, however, he is described as "portrait-painter
and underwriter." What underwriter exactly means is uncertain, but it
may be that the son was a marine-insurance broker, that Raeburn himself
took marine-insurance risks. In any case his ruin seemed complete.
Not only did he lose all his savings but he had even to sell the York
Place studio, of which he was afterwards only tenant. He failed, paid
a composition, and, two years later, proposed settling in London. By
those of his biographers who have noticed it at all, this failure and
the contemplated removal south have been very closely associated. But
a more careful examination of the whole circumstances makes such an
assumption rather doubtful. Alexander Cunningham, in a letter written
on 16th February 1808, tells a correspondent--"I had a walk of three
hours on Sunday with my worthy friend, Raeburn. He had realised nearly
L17,000, which is all gone. He has offered a small composition, which
he is in hopes will be accepted. He quits this to try his fate in
London, which I trust in God will be successful. While I write this I
feel the tear start." So far the connection is evident enough. But
although the artist received his discharge in June of the same year,[2]
it was not until two years later that he took active steps towards
carrying out his idea.[3] The time was highly propitious. Hoppner had
just died (23rd January 1810), and Wilkie records in his journal (March
2nd) that he had heard that that artist's house was to be taken for
Raeburn. Lawrence was now without a rival in the metropolis, and
Raeburn's talent was of a kind which would soon have commanded
attention there. The opening was obvious, but Raeburn's reception by
the gentlemen of the Royal Academy, when he visited London in May, was
not very cordial, and fortunately for Scotland, if not for himself, he
was persuaded to remain in Edinburgh. From then onward the fates were
kind. To quote his own words, written in 1822, "my business, though it
may fall off, cannot admit of enlargement."
Wider recognition also came to him. He had exhibited at the Royal
Academy as early as 1792, but it was 1810 before he became a regular
contributor, and in 1812 he was elected an Associate, full membership
following three years later. Just prior to his advancement to
Academician rank, he wrote one of the few letters by him that have been
preserved:--"I observe what you say respecting the election of an R.A.;
but what am I to do here? They know that I am on their list; if they
choose to elect me without solicitation, it will be the more honourable
to me, and I will think the more of it; but if it can only be obtained
by means of solicitation and canvassing, I must give up all hopes of
it, for I would think it unfair to employ those means."
No doubt election was particularly gratifying to Raeburn. Isolated as
he was in Edinburgh, where an Academy did not come into existence until
some years after his death, it must have been stimulating to receive
such tangible assurance of that appreciation of one's fellow-workers
which is the most grateful form of admiration to the artist. He
reciprocated by offering as his diploma work the impressive portrait of
himself, which is now one of the treasures of the National Gallery of
Scotland. The rules of the Academy, however, forbade the acceptance of
a self-portrait, and in 1821 he gave the "Boy with Rabbit"--a portrait
of his step-grandson, but one of his most genre-like pieces. Other
Academic diplomas received later were those of the Academies of
Florence, New York, and South Carolina.
A year before he died these artistic laurels were supplemented by royal
favour. On the occasion of that never-to-be-forgotten event--to those
who took part in it--the first visit of a King to Scotland since the
Union of Parliaments, Raeburn was presented to George IV. and knighted.
His fellow artists marked their appreciation of this fresh distinction
by entertaining him to a public dinner, at which the chairman,
Alexander Nasmyth, the doyen of the local painters, declared that "they
loved him as a man not less than they admired him as an artist." And
in the following May, the King appointed him his "limner and painter in
Scotland, with all fees, profits, salaries, rights, privileges, and
advantages thereto belonging."
Raeburn did not long enjoy these new honours. In July, a day or two
after returning from an archaeological excursion in Fifeshire with,
amongst others, Sir Walter Scott and Miss Edgeworth, he became suddenly
ill, took to bed, and in less than a week was dead.
[1] All Raeburn's biographers follow Cunningham in stating that Raeburn
succeeded to St Bernard's on the death of his brother in 1787 or 1788.
It was not so, however. The intimation in the _Edinburgh Evening
Courant_, of 13th December 1810, reads, "Died on the 6th December Mr
William Raeburn, manufacturer, Stockbridge"; and the title deeds of St
Bernard's show that the artist purchased it from the trustees of the
late Mrs Margaret Ross in October 1809.
[2] Henry Raeburn & Co.'s affairs were not settled until March 1810.
[3] That his own affairs were not only settled but were again highly
prosperous before this is apparent from his having purchased St
Bernard's in 1809.