Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A. (Scottish, 1756-1823)

The present portrait was originally conceived with a pendant of the sitter's wife, in a white dress seated on a red chair. Both portraits are believed to have been painted in 1790 as there is record of John Anderson having asked Raeburn's frame-maker for a pair of frames in that year. John was the third son of David Anderson of Stoneyhill, Factor to the Earl of Wemyss, and his wife Mary Mitchelson, and was born on 14 August 1754. In 1784, he married his cousin Janet Mitchelson. The couple commissioned their home, Inchyra House, in 1810, which was designed to resemble the Commercial Bank in Edinburgh.