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Hon. James Wilson

6 of 41 portraits by Sir John Watson-Gordon

Hon. James Wilson, by Sir John Watson-Gordon, 1858 -NPG 2189 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Early Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Hon. James Wilson

by Sir John Watson-Gordon
1858
50 1/8 in. x 40 in. (1273 mm x 1016 mm)
NPG 2189

Inscriptionback to top

Signed and dated (bottom left): Sir John Watson Gordon/RA & PRSA pinxit/1858

This portraitback to top

This portrait was presented to Mrs Wilson by the Royal Scottish Academy in recognition of the services her husband had rendered to them in 1858, when he was financial secretary to the Treasury. He secured the land on which the Academy is now built. The Academy also presented Mrs Wilson with a replica of Sir J. Steell's marble bust of Wilson in the Scottish NPG. In a letter of 17 May 1859, Watson Gordon wrote (Servant of All, II, 12-13): 'Nothing can exceed the satisfaction I feel at the kindly manner in which you express your approbation of the Portrait of Mr Wilson. Indeed it is most gratifying considering the great obligations we all feel ourselves under to the original.' Wilson himself records sitting to Watson Gordon and Steell in a letter of 20 December 1858 (Servant of All, II, 123). The NPG portrait was engraved by F. Stacpoole, published H. Graves, 1860 (example in NPG). A copy of the portrait was given by Wilson's children to the gallery of local worthies in Hawick town hall.

Referenceback to top

Barrington
Emilie I. [Mrs Russell] Barrington, The Servant of All (1927), II, 12-13, 123.

Dictionary of National Biography, LXII (1900), 102.

Physical descriptionback to top

Healthy complexion, dark eyes, brown hair. Dressed in a white shirt, black neck-tie and suit, with a gold-mounted monocle suspended on a black cord from his neck. Seated in a red armchair. Background colour various tones of brown and green.

Provenanceback to top

The sitter's wife; Mrs Bagehot; presented by Mrs Russell Barrington, the sitter's daughter, 1928.

Reproductionsback to top

Emilie I. [Mrs Russell] Barrington, The Servant of All (1927), II, facing 12.


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: Richard Ormond, Early Victorian Portraits, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1973, and is as published then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.

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