Portrait of a Man with Gray Hair 1810 - 1820

This is Henry Raeburn’s, “Portrait of a Man with Gray Hair,” made with oil on canvas, likely sometime around the turn of the 19th century. Raeburn was the leading portrait painter in Edinburgh during the Scottish Enlightenment, a period defined by an optimistic belief in reason and progress. Raeburn received the bulk of his commissions from members of Edinburgh society whose features he captured with a distinctive naturalism. But the way he represents his sitter also communicates a great deal about social class and status. The direct gaze, the sober dress, and the subdued palette all speak to the man’s respectability and seriousness. His features are idealized in a way that suggests virtue. As a historian, I am interested in the visual codes of class and how they are embedded in images like this one. By looking at the history of fashion, the conventions of portraiture, and the biographies of both artist and sitter, we can better understand the complex social world that this painting so elegantly represents.