The museum's collection totals some 3,000 paintings and sculptures, 25,000 prints and drawings, and 38,000 photographs. The collection essentially begins in the Renaissance, initially with works mainly by foreign artists of Scottish royalty, nobility, and mainly printed portraits of clergymen and writers; the most notable paintings were mostly made on the Continent (often during periods of exile from the turbulent Scottish political scene). As in England, the
Scottish Reformation all but extinguished religious art, and until the 19th century portrait painting dominated Scottish painting, with patrons gradually extending down the social scale. In the 16th century most painted portraits are of royalty or the more important nobility; the oldest work in the collection is a portrait of
James IV of Scotland from 1507. The collection includes two portraits of
Mary, Queen of Scots, although neither dates from her lifetime; one was painted some 20 years after her death in 1587, and the other is later still; there are also a number of 19th-century paintings showing scenes from her life. Mary's circle is actually better represented by portraits from the life, with her three husbands all having portraits, including
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley by
Hans Eworth and an unknown painter, and miniatures from 1566 of
James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell and his
first wife. There is a portrait of Mary's nemesis,
Regent Morton, by
Arnold Bronckhorst who was from 1581 the first artist to hold the title of "King's Painter" in Scotland, though he only spent about three years there. The gallery holds several works by Bronckhorst and his successor,
Adrian Vanson; both were skilled painters in the
Netherlandish tradition. The collection includes portraits by Bronckhorst and Vanson of
James VI and I, but the others were made after he succeeded to the English throne and moved to London, where the many portraits of other
Stuart monarchs were also mostly painted. The first significant native Scot to be a portrait painter,
George Jamesone (1589/90-1644) only once got the chance to paint his monarch, when
Charles I visited Edinburgh in 1633. The collection includes two Jamesone self-portraits and portraits of the Scottish aristocracy, as well as some imagined portraits of heroes of Scotland's past. There are three portraits by Jamesone's talented pupil
John Michael Wright and ten aristocratic portraits by Sir
John Baptist Medina, the last "King's Painter" before the
Acts of Union 1707. File:Agnes Douglas Countess of Argyll.jpg|
Adrian Vanson, Agnes Douglas, Countess of Argyll, 1599 File:Mary, Queen of Scotland, legitimist pretender to England, Ireland and France.jpg|
Mary, Queen of Scots, posthumous portrait, c. 1610 File:GeorgeJamesone.jpg|
George Jamesone, self-portrait, c. 1642 File:John Michael Wright - Lord Mungo Murray (Am Morair Mungo Moireach), 1668 - 1700. Son of 1st Marquess of Atholl - Google Art Project.jpg|
John Michael Wright, Lord Mungo Murray in plaid, 1683 File:Sir John Baptiste de Medina - Sir John Baptiste de Medina, 1659 - 1710. Portrait painter (Self-portrait) - PG 1555 - National Galleries of Scotland.jpg|
John Baptist Medina, self-portrait, 1698 The display "Blazing with Crimson: Tartan Portraits" (until December 2013) concentrates on portraits featuring
tartan, which begin to be painted in the late 17th century, at that time apparently with no political connotations. The museum has one of the earliest examples, a full-length portrait of 1683 by John Michael Wright of Lord Mungo Murray, son of
John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl, wearing a
belted plaid for hunting. The wearing of tartan was banned after the
1745 Jacobite Rebellion, but reappears in grand portraits after a few decades, before becoming ever more popular with
Romanticism and the works of
Sir Walter Scott. Also wearing tartan is
Flora MacDonald, painted by
Richard Wilson in London after her arrest for helping
Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape after the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. Scottish portrait painting flourished in the 18th century and
Allan Ramsay and Sir
Henry Raeburn are well represented with 13 and 15 works respectively, the former with many paintings of figures from the
Scottish Enlightenment, as well as the recently acquired
lost portrait of Charles Edward Stuart, and the career of the latter extending into the 19th century with portraits of Walter Scott and others. The museum owns the iconic portrait of
Robert Burns by
Alexander Nasmyth. The largest number of works by a single artist is the 58 by the sculptor and gem-cutter
James Tassie (1735–1799), who developed a distinctive format of large fired glass paste (or
vitreous enamel)
relief "medallion" portraits in profile, initially modelled in wax. His subjects include
Adam Smith,
James Beattie and
Robert Adam. Adam disliked having his portrait taken but Tassie was a member of his social circle he did not refuse, with the result that, as with the Naysmyth portrait of Burns, almost all images of Smith derive from the exemplar in the museum. File:Wilson - Flora MacDonald.jpg|
Richard Wilson,
Flora MacDonald, 1747 File:David Hume 2.jpg|
Allan Ramsay,
David Hume, 1766 File:Charles Edward Stuart (1775).jpg|
Hugh Douglas Hamilton, "
Bonnie Prince Charlie" in later life, 1775 File:PG 1063Burns Naysmith.jpg|
Robert Burns by
Alexander Nasmyth, 1787 File:Sir Henry Raeburn - Portrait of Sir Walter Scott.jpg|
Henry Raeburn, Sir
Walter Scott, 1822 The later 19th century in Scotland had no such dominant figures, but many fine artists, and saw the beginning of photography. The museum devotes a gallery to the photographs of
Glasgow life taken by
Thomas Annan, especially the images of slums taken in 1868–71, and in general the displays concentrate on the common people of Scotland. The collection continues to expand in the present day, with Scottish painters such as
John Bellany (
Peter Maxwell Davies, self-portrait and
Billy Connolly) and
John Byrne, whose works include images of himself,
Tilda Swinton,
Billy Connolly and
Robbie Coltrane. Other works in the collection include: •
James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton, by
Daniel Mytens •
Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, 14th Duke of Hamilton, by
Oskar Kokoschka •
Winnie Ewing by
Norman Edgar •
Alex Ferguson by
David Mach •
Ian Wilmut by
Wendy McMurdo •
Robin Jenkins by
Jennifer McRae ==Notes==