Completed Portraits: British 16th and 17th C, Scotland: Artists and Subjects 11 comments Did William Dobson paint this portrait of James, 1st Marquess of Montrose?
Photo credit: National Trust for Scotland, Hermiston Quay
There is quite a similarity with William Dobson's portrait of Montrose after which there is a line engraving in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery: https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/35684/james-graham-1st-marquess-montrose-1612-1650-royalist
However, that print is probably eighteenth century, not seventeenth century.
George Vertue's engraving of the same portrait (an impression of which is in the British Museum) was made in 1731: http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3606136&partId=1&searchText=montrose&page=1
The National Trust for Scotland would be interesting to know more about it. The previous director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, James Holloway, had commented a few years ago that he believed the painting could be by Dobson but was, at the very least, from the circle of Dobson.
Completed, Outcome
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10 comments
your portrait appears to be a copy of the original Dobson portrait sold at Sotheby's in 2013:
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/old-master-british-paintings-evening-l13033/lot.5.html
Much of the debate regarding the various portraits of James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, can be found here:
https://www.artuk.org/artdetective/discussions/discussions/if-not-james-graham-of-montrose-who-is-this-sitter-is-he-from-the-european-mainland
As mentioned therein, a useful discussion on the multiplicity of very different images of James Graham - from four paintings that, it is claimed, bear the greatest resemblance to him, and on to "the endless engravings of the penny-print school" - can be found in the first appendix of the first volume of the 1856 edition of "Memoirs of the Marquis of Montrose" by Mark Napier. The attached composite shows these four "true likenesses" as described in the book.
https://archive.org/stream/memoirsmarquism02napigoog#page/n410/mode/2up/search/penny-print
Attached also are two other composites depicting Graham.
I agree with Rab MacGibbon: this portrait is definitely of copy quality. While apparently deriving from the work sold at Sotheby's in 2013, it lacks the latter's confident handling of the face, and the painting of the collar and the armour is more laboured.
This is clearly after the Dobson portrait sold by Sotheby's linked above, so the original question would seem to have been answered. Also, the Art UK entry should give the sitter's vital dates (1612-1650).
The sitter's dates have been added. I agree that the question has been answered. I'll happily update and close this as soon as I hear from Michelle or Bendor.
Another portrait of the Marquis of Montrose “by Dobson” was in a Christie, Manson & Woods auction on April 2, 1860, as reported in that day’s ‘Morning Post’ (see notice, attached, hopefully).
Thank you to everyone who contributed. I agree we have reached a conclusion and recommend that the artist record be updated to ‘after William Dobson’.
Not sure why this discussion is still live despite Michelle's recommendation from 14 months ago to close it.
The NTS should be asked again if it want to follow Michelle's recommendation - may be it was missed before
When closed it would be useful to note in 'more information' both that the original was no. 14 in the NPG's 1983 Dobson show and that it came out of original Graham family descent only when sold at Sotheby's on 3 July 2013. Just saying 'after' is half an answer to anyone who might have a future interest but not know 'after what' or where to find more information given the original is not in public hands.