Allan Ramsay (Scottish 1713-1784) Portrait of James Bateman (d.1758)

Allan Ramsay (Scottish 1713-1784)

Portrait of James Bateman (d.1758), three quarter length standing, wearing a bright blue waistcoat and grey coat, his arm resting on a marble ledge

Signed and dated 1756

Oil on canvas

127 x 101cm; 50 x 40in

Provenance:

Wauchope family of Niddry

Doig, Wilson & Wheatley, Edinburgh, 1952

Ian MacNicol, Glasgow, 1956

2nd Viscount Weir (d.1975)

3rd Viscount Weir

Christie's, Montgreenan sale, 8 December 1980, lot 372

Exhibited:

Talbot Rice Art Centre, University of Edinburgh, 1990-91

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1995-2016

Literature:

Scottish Art Review, v. no. 3, (Summer, 1955), frontispiece

Allan Ramsay, Catalogue raisonné, Alastair Smart, published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999, p.79

James Bateman was the second son of Sir James Bateman (c.1660-1718). Sir James was one of the founding directors of the Bank of England and Sub-Governor of the South Sea Company in 1711. He was also a Trustee of the sale of the South Sea Stock between 1714 and 1716, when he became Lord Mayor of London. He left a fortune, reputedly worth £400,000, (with RPI this amounts to some £56,000,000 today) with his two younger sons James and Richard inheriting estates in Tooting, Kent and Essex. James married Anne Chaplin in 1721, daughter of Sir Francis Chaplin who had been expelled from Parliament in 1721 after the collapse of the South Sea Company. Allan Ramsay was in Italy for his second visit between 1754 and 1757, visiting Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli. Whilst in Rome he painted the portraits of several Grand Tourists including the present portrait of James who was in Rome with his wife. It was in Rome that Ramsay met up with his fellow Scots, Robert Adam and Gavin Hamilton. Adam, in letters home, referred to Ramsay cheekily as "Old Mumpy" and "Black-beard Allan", but visited the Ramsays regularly. Ramsay painted his portrait in 1755.