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Lot Essay
General Duncan Campbell of Lochnell and Barbreck (1763-1837) was the son of Colonel Dugald Campbell of Ballimore and Christiana Lamont Drummond. Campbell rose to prominence in 1793 when King George III wrote to John, 5th Duke of Argyll, asking him to raise a kilted regiment of 1,100 men. The Duke was unwell at the time and deputed the task to Campbell. On 9 July 1794, Campbell's regiment was formally gazetted into the British Army as the 98th Argyllshire Highlanders (renumbered the 91st in 1798). The following year he participated in combat for the Cape in South Africa, including the Battle of Wynberg. Campbell was Member of Parliament for Ayr Burghs between 1809 and 1818 and was listed as a 'thick and thin' supporter by the Whigs in 1810. He married Eleonora Fraser (b. 1766), daughter of William Fraser, 14th Lord Saltoun, in 1792. After their divorce in 1808, he married Augusta Murray (d. 1846), daughter of Sir William Murray of Ochtertyre, whose family also sat to the artist. Campbell lived at Lochnell House, overlooking Ardmucknish Bay, the seat he inherited from his great-uncle, Sir Duncan Campbell, in 1765. He died in Edinburgh on 9th April 1837 without issue and was succeeded by his cousin, Archibald Campbell.
This arresting portrait would appear to date to the early 1790s, quite possibly around the time the Duke of Argyll asked Campbell to raise a regiment. Campbell is shown in military dress, his arms crossed, standing in a wooded landscape. The attitude of the sitter and treatment of Campbell's sash correspond closely to Raeburn's portrait of Captain David Birrell, in the collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which Duncan Thompson dates to the early 1790s (D. Thomson, Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn 1756-1823, exhibition catalogue, Edinburgh, 1997, p. 80, no. 15). The fractured brushwork, the thick use of white pigment and the colourisitic effects in the boscage of the Campbell picture can be compared with Raeburn's portrait of Dr Nathaniel Spens, (c. 1793, Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland, Royal Company of Archers). A portrait of the sitter's mother, painted by Raeburn around the time of the present picture, is in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. Campbell later sat to Raeburn for another three-quarter-length portrait (private collection) that was engraved by J.B. Bird; this portrait, dating to the 1820s, is almost certainly the picture that appears in the inventory of debts owed to the artist when he died in 1823.
The son of a Hungarian Jewish choirmaster, Marczell von Nemes made a fortune in the tobacco industry, building up a celebrated and extensive art collection. He is largely credited with the 'discovery' of El Greco in the nineteenth century, and also enjoyed collecting (and dealing in) Old Masters, alongside works by the French Impressionists and contemporary artists, including those of the Hungarian school, many of which he donated to the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest. Raeburn's portrait of Campbell had certainly entered the Nemes Collection by 1912, when it was shown, together with one other portrait by Raeburn (James Veitsch, Lord Eliock; now in the Edinburgh Faculty of Advocates), in a major exhibition of the Nemes collection held in the Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf.
We are grateful to Dr. David Mackie, St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. The portrait will be included in David Mackie's forthcoming complete catalogue of Raeburn to be published by the Paul Mellon Centre, London.
This arresting portrait would appear to date to the early 1790s, quite possibly around the time the Duke of Argyll asked Campbell to raise a regiment. Campbell is shown in military dress, his arms crossed, standing in a wooded landscape. The attitude of the sitter and treatment of Campbell's sash correspond closely to Raeburn's portrait of Captain David Birrell, in the collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which Duncan Thompson dates to the early 1790s (D. Thomson, Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn 1756-1823, exhibition catalogue, Edinburgh, 1997, p. 80, no. 15). The fractured brushwork, the thick use of white pigment and the colourisitic effects in the boscage of the Campbell picture can be compared with Raeburn's portrait of Dr Nathaniel Spens, (c. 1793, Queen's Bodyguard for Scotland, Royal Company of Archers). A portrait of the sitter's mother, painted by Raeburn around the time of the present picture, is in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh. Campbell later sat to Raeburn for another three-quarter-length portrait (private collection) that was engraved by J.B. Bird; this portrait, dating to the 1820s, is almost certainly the picture that appears in the inventory of debts owed to the artist when he died in 1823.
The son of a Hungarian Jewish choirmaster, Marczell von Nemes made a fortune in the tobacco industry, building up a celebrated and extensive art collection. He is largely credited with the 'discovery' of El Greco in the nineteenth century, and also enjoyed collecting (and dealing in) Old Masters, alongside works by the French Impressionists and contemporary artists, including those of the Hungarian school, many of which he donated to the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest. Raeburn's portrait of Campbell had certainly entered the Nemes Collection by 1912, when it was shown, together with one other portrait by Raeburn (James Veitsch, Lord Eliock; now in the Edinburgh Faculty of Advocates), in a major exhibition of the Nemes collection held in the Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf.
We are grateful to Dr. David Mackie, St. Catharine's College, University of Cambridge, for his assistance in cataloguing this lot. The portrait will be included in David Mackie's forthcoming complete catalogue of Raeburn to be published by the Paul Mellon Centre, London.