1713-1784 British Allan Ramsay Galleries Allan Ramsay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd. Ramsay's first wife, Anne Bayne, by Ramsay Ramsay's second wife Margaret Lindsay, by RamsayFrom the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Huyssing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy; leaving in 1736 for Rome and Naples, where he worked for three years under Francesco Solimena and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi). On his return in 1738 he first settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by his head of Duncan Forbes of Culloden and his full-length portrait of the Duke of Argyll, later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. His pleasant manners and varied culture, not less than his artistic skill, contributed to render him popular. His only serious competitor was Thomas Hudson, with whom he shared a drapery painter, Joseph van Aken. In 1739 he married his first wife, Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684?C1737), and Mary Carstairs (1695??C1759). None of their 3 children survived childhood, and she died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them. One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick and Amelia Murray (granddaughter to David Murray, 5th Viscount of Stormont and sister to the naval officer John Lindsay). He later eloped with her and on 1 March 1752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, though her father never forgave her for marrying an artist. Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage as well as his two surviving sisters, but told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100 which would increase ??as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing?? and that his only motive for the marriage was ??my love for your Daughter, who, I am sensible, is entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her??. There were three surviving children from their long and happy marriage, Amelia (1755?C1813), Charlotte (1758?C1818?), and John (1768?C1845). Ramsay and his new wife spent 1754?C1757 together in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites, and (to earn an income) painting Grand Tourists' portraits. This and other trips to Italy involved more literary and antiquarian research than art. After their return, he was in 1761 appointed to succeed John Shackelton as Principle Painter in Ordinary to George III, beating Hudson to the post; and so fully employed was he on the royal portraits which the king was in the habit of presenting to ambassadors and colonial governors, that he was forced to take advantage of the services of a host of assistants--of whom David Martin and Philip Reinagle are the best known. He gave up painting in about 1770 to concentrate on literary pursuits, his health shattered by an accidental dislocation of the right arm and his second wife's death in 1782. With unflinching pertinacity, he struggled until he had completed a likeness of the king upon which he was engaged at the time, and then started for his beloved Italy, leaving behind him a series of fifty royal portraits to be completed by his assistant Reinagle. For several years he lingered in the south, his constitution finally broken. He died at Dover on 10 August 1784.  Related Paintings of Allan Ramsay :. | Queen Charlotte as painted by Allan Ramsay in 1762. | Miss Craigie | John Fitzgerald Villiers | National Gallery of Scotland | Portrait of Lady Susan Fox Strangways |
Related Artists:
George Oberteuffer
American, 1878-1940
carl neumann

Ercole Roberti
1456-1496 Italian Ercole Roberti Gallery Ercole de' Roberti (c. 1451 ?C 1496), also known as Ercole Ferrarese or Ercole da Ferrara, was an Italian artist of the Early Renaissance and the School of Ferrara. He was profiled in Vasari's Le Vite delle pi?? eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori. The son of the doorkeeper at the Este castle, Ercole later held the position of court artist for the Este family in Ferrara. According to Vasari: By 1473, when he was 17, Ercole had left Ferrara and was working in Bologna in the studio of Francesco del Cossa. (According to Vasari, Ercole also apprenticed under Lorenzo Costa in Bologna, but this seems unlikely as he was Lorenzo's senior by seveal years). He is known to have collaborated in the frescoes of Palazzo Schifanoia. Ercole's first mature works are his contributions to the Griffoni Chapel for the San Petronio Basilica in Bologna: a predella depicting the Miracles of St Vincent Ferrer (c.1473) (now in the Pinacoteca of the Vatican), and lateral pilasters for the altarpiece commissioned from del Cossa. In 1480, Ercole created a large altarpiece with a Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints for Santa Maria in Porto in Ravenna, which is now in the Brera, Milan. Portraits of Giovanni II Bentivoglio and Ginevra Bentivoglio attributed to Ercole de' Roberti (c. 1480) are in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Ercole succeeded Cosm?? Tura as court painter to the Este family in Ferrara around 1486. His role apparently went far beyond making art: he accompanied Alfonso d'Este on a papal visit to Rome, served as wardrobe manager for Isabella d'Este's wedding in Mantua, and may even have made salamis. A painting of Portia and Brutus (c. 1486-90), believed to be painted for Eleonora of Aragon, duchess of Ferrara, is in the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. Ercole's painting of Saint Jerome in the Wilderness from this period is in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.