Robert The Bruce

George Jamesone

DETAILS
  • Artist

    George Jamesone

  • Date

    1633

  • Medium

    Oil on canvas

  • Object number

    3227

  • Dimensions unframed

    68 × 68.5 cm

  • Dimensions framed

    82.5 × 72.5 × 5 cm

  • Marks

    Inscribed top right

  • Subject

    Portrait

ARTIST PROFILE

George Jamesone, 1587-1644

Born in Aberdeen, the son of a stone mason, Jamesone has been called “the Scottish Van Dyck”. He was apprenticed to his uncle, John Anderson, a popular decorative painter in Edinburgh and became highly regarded as a portrait painter among the merchants and burghers of Aberdeen, but he attained national fame when he was commissioned to paint a decorative arch for the royal visit of Charles I to Scotland in 1633, and then to paint the King himself. From that point on, he was highly sought-after among the Scottish aristocracy, maintaining busy studios in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and is considered to be Scotland’s first eminent portrait painter.