Master Stroke: Fleming Collection Acquires Historic 17th-Century Scottish Paintings

18.08.2025

The Fleming Collection has recently been fortunate enough to win at auction key historical works which will form a cornerstone in the greater historical body of the collection. As the Fleming Collection has grown over recent years, significant works by early Scottish Masters have proved elusive.

Other than a brilliant 1633 portrait painting of Robert the Bruce by George Jamesone (1587–1644), Scotland’s first eminent portraitist – acquired in 2016 by former director James Knox – the Fleming Collection held no works dating from the 17th century.

Three paintings – a pair of 1628 portraits by renowned Scottish-Dutch painter Adam de Colone (1572–1651) and a third 1666 portrait by David Scougall (c.1610–1680) – now provide beautiful, rare and historically significant additions to flesh out this important period of Scottish art history within the collection. A fourth work, a c.1780s portrait in landscape by founding father of Scottish landscape painting, Alexander Nasmyth (1758–1840), has also been acquired.

All four paintings came from the collection of former Antiques Roadshow expert and Christie's ceramic specialist, Hugo Morley-Fletcher. These works, belonging to ancestors of Morley-Fletcher, hung in historic Yester House in East Lothian for many decades.

The pair of works by Adam De Colone represents an important period in Scottish art. De Colone’s work is a fascinating link in the chain of 17th-century art history, through the transmission of fashionable portraits, whose style derives from the Low Countries, to their influence on Jacobean portraiture in Scotland.

The first is a portrait of John Hay, 8th Lord Hay of Yester, later 1st Earl of Tweedale (1595–1654). De Colone was in Scotland for a short time and painted numerous portraits for the family, as well as counting royals among his patrons.

The sitter John Hay was a leading promoter of the National Covenant, an agreement signed by many Scottish Presbyterians in 1638, which opposed religious reforms proposed by King Charles I. This stood as a declaration by the Scottish population that they wished to retain their own religious beliefs and rights. Despite this opposition to the King, Charles I remained on good terms with Hay, making him an earl in 1646. The painting was loaned on exhibition to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 1975.

The second De Colone work, another portrait, is of Lady Margaret Hay, Countess of Dunfermline (1592–1659), which was originally thought to be of her mother, Lady Margaret Kerr, Lady Yester (1573–1645). However, the date on the painting affirms that it is indeed Lady Margaret Hay. Further evidence is the fact that the Countess knew De Colone, having commissioned him to do a portrait of her son, Charles Seton, 2nd Earl of Dunfermline, as well as her first husband, the 1st Earl of Dunfermline.

The third work is a later 17th-century piece (c.1666) by David Scougall, of another Hay family member, Lady Margaret Hay (c.1657–1753). The painting features incredibly fine details of late 17th-century fashion and was shown at the 1976 Scottish National Portrait Gallery exhibition, Childhood in 17th Century Scotland.

Scougall’s work follows in the path of the first great portrait painter, George Jamesone. During the period immediately after the restoration of Charles II, Scougall dominated the Scottish portrait market, producing many paintings of members of the new Parliament. His son and grandson, John and George respectively, became noted painters in their own right.

The last, and grandest, of the four newly acquired works is a c.1785 work by Alexander Nasmyth, who is hailed as the founder of Scottish landscape painting. The portrait is of the Scottish peer, George Hay, 7th Marquess of Tweeddale, the great-grandson of John Hay, 2nd Marquess of Tweeddale. He is depicted alongside his horse and two dogs in a vast, open landscape, highlighting the artist’s dual talent for both portraiture and landscape painting. Renowned for his expansive, dramatic scenes, Nasmyth played a pivotal role in defining the character of Scottish art and mentored a generation of influential artists.

This magnificent work will play a key role in both the Fleming Collection’s outstanding body of Scottish landscape works, as well as portraiture. The unusual painting, highlighted by its size and detail, also features depictions of Tantallon

Castle and Bass Rock in the background. The Bass Rock, a steep-sided island and bird colony in the Firth of Forth, is now thought to be the earliest known landmark depicted in Scottish landscape, featuring in Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1561 engraving of ‘Armed Three-master with Daedalus and Icarus in the Sky from The Sailing Vessels’. This engraving was shown for the first time in the context of Scottish landscape in our Romance to Realities exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle.

These four works represent the first acquisitions in my role as Director of the Fleming Collection and further cement our standing as the pre-eminent collection of Scottish artwork outside of a public institution.

Theodore Albano is Director of the Fleming Collection.

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