Andrew Meikle

Andrew Meikle, by A. Reddock, 1811 -NPG 5001 - © National Portrait Gallery, London

© National Portrait Gallery, London

Mid-Georgian Portraits Catalogue

Andrew Meikle

by A. Reddock
1811
49 3/8 in. x 39 1/2 in. (1254 mm x 1003 mm)
NPG 5001

Inscriptionback to top

Inscribed top left: Andw. Meikle/of the Thrashing Machine/93 years/1811.

This portraitback to top

The unique and unsophisticated portrait of Meikle, identified by the inscription (the date of which is presumably commemorative rather than actual) and the working drawings on the table before him. The painter, identified through the 1862 engraving (lettered Ruddock), is otherwise known for two Scottish portraits. [1]

Footnotesback to top

1) Letter from Robin Hutchison, 19 March 1976; he suggested that Reddock [or Reddoch] looked toward Raeburn and mentioned a portrait of James Dalyell, 5th Bt of the Binns, inscribed A. Reddock/Falkirk.

Physical descriptionback to top

Blue-green eyes, dark brown hair; wearing a black coat and waistcoat, holding a sharpened pencil in his right hand; a green cloth covers the table on which stand an ink well with two quills, a diagram of a threshing machine and a separate paper lettered: PLA../THRASH..

Provenanceback to top

Anon. sale,1 Bonham’s, 15 August 1974, lot 8, bought Brian Sewell, from whom purchased 1974.

1 Printed label on stretcher has: Lunn’s Stores/Edinburgh No.5. The label of Doig, Wilson & Wheatley on the frame.

Reproductionsback to top

T. D. Scott (half-length oval), 1862 (for Smiles Lives of the Engineers, II).


This extended catalogue entry is from the out-of-print National Portrait Gallery collection catalogue: John Ingamells, National Portrait Gallery: Mid-Georgian Portraits 1760-1790, National Portrait Gallery, 2004, 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.