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James Bruce

2 of 5 portraits of James Bruce

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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James Bruce

by John Smart
watercolour and bodycolour on ivory, 1776
1 1/2 in. x 1 1/4 in. (38 mm x 32 mm) oval
Purchased, 1975
Primary Collection
NPG 5008

Sitterback to top

  • James Bruce (1730-1794), Explorer. Sitter associated with 5 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • John Smart (1741-1811), Miniature painter. Artist or producer associated with 20 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Ingamells, John, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, 2004, p. 75
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 84
  • Walker, Richard, Miniatures: 300 Years of the English Miniature, 1998, p. 77 Read entry

    The diarist Fanny Burney wrote that 'Abyssinian' Bruce's 'grand air, gigantic height, and forbidding brow, awed everybody into silence' (letter of c.1773 to Samuel Crisp). Bruce's travels in Africa, especially up the Nile and in Abyssinia, are vividly if inaccurately described in his highly readable Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile 1768-73 (1790, 1805 and 1813).

Subject/Themeback to top

Events of 1776back to top

Current affairs

Tahitian visitor to London Omai returns home with Captain James Cook on his third voyage. During his two-year stay he inspired a play and was painted by Joshua Reynolds.
Member of Parliament David Hartley unsuccessfully introduces a motion to the House of Commons calling for the abolition of the slave trade.

Art and science

Edward Gibbon produces the first volume of his monumental The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Artist John Constable is born.
Scottish economist Adam Smith analyses the nature and causes of prosperity in his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations.

International

American War of Independence: George Washington raises a new American flag on Prospect Hill, Boston. In an anonymous pamphlet entitled Common Sense, English immigrant Thomas Paine is the first to argue that the American colonies should be independent. Declaration of American Independence on 4 July.

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