Raeburn is thought to have painted the portrait of Dr Alexander Lindsay of Pinkieburn around 1807. Alexander Lindsay (1742-1820) was the Surgeon-Major to the Royal Artillery in Ireland and medical adviser to the Viceroy in Dublin. Highly regarded as a physician, he was laird of the small estate in Pinkieburn, Musselburgh, where he retired after his career in Ireland. Lindsay's brother, the Reverend James Lindsay, was also painted by Raeburn. 

Sir Henry Raeburn RA, 1756-1823

Born in Edinburgh and educated at George Heriot’s Hospital, Raeburn was apprenticed to goldsmith James Gilliland. He excelled at miniature painting and soon moved on to full-size work, learning from the painter Runciman. After travels to London and Italy in the 1780s, his work grew in scale and ambition. By 1798, when he moved into a new purpose-built studio in York Place, he had established himself as Scotland’s leading portrait painter. A great colourist, but capable of subtlety and frankness as well as drama, he remains the central figure in Scottish portrait painting, and the most important chronicler of the figures around the Enlightenment. David Wilkie compared his brushstrokes to those of Velazquez.