Allan Ramsay

Allan Ramsay (October 13, 1713 – August 10, 1784), was a Scottish portrait-painter. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the eldest son of Allan Ramsay, poet and author of The Gentle Shepherd.

From the age of twenty he studied in London under the Swedish painter Hans Huyssing, and at the St. Martin's Lane Academy. In 1736 we left for Rome and Naples, where he worked under Francesco Solimena and Imperiali (Francesco Fernandi). On his return in 1738 he settled in Edinburgh, attracting attention by for his portrait of Archibald Campbell, the 3rd Duke of Argyll, which was later used on Royal Bank of Scotland banknotes. He later moved to London, where he was employed by the Duke of Bridgewater. In 1739 he married Anne Bayne, the daughter of a professor of Scots law at Edinburgh University, Alexander Bayne of Rires (c.1684–1737). None of their three children survived childhood, and Anne died on 4 February 1743 giving birth to the third of them.

One of his drawing pupils was Margaret Lindsay, eldest daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick. He eloped with her, and on 1 March [752 they married in the Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh. Ramsay already had to maintain a daughter from his previous marriage as well as two sisters, but he told Sir Alexander that he could provide Margaret with an annual income of £100 which would increase ‘as my affairs increase, and I thank God, they are in a way of increasing’ and that his only motive for the marriage was ‘my love for your Daughter, who, I am sensible, is entitled to much more than ever I shall have to bestow upon her’. There were three surviving children, Amelia (1755–1813), Charlotte (1758–1818?), and John (1768–1845).

Ramsay and Margaret spent 1754–1757 in Italy, going to Rome, Florence, Naples and Tivoli, researching, painting and drawing old masters, antiquities and archaeological sites. After their return, he was in 1761 appointed principal "painter in ordinary" to George III.

He died at Dover on August 10, 1784.