VICTORIAN SCOTTISH SCHOOL
MAJOR JAMES FRASER OF CASTLE LEATHERS
Auction: Day 1: Wednesday 20 August - Lots 1 - 296
Description
watercolour on paper laid on canvas, signed ‘D WILKIE’, framed and under glass, with gilt plaque ‘1785 Sir David Wilkie RA 1841, Major Fraser of Castle Leathers’, the reverse with a paper label cut from an auction catalogue
Dimensions
42cm x 30cm; 56cm x 44cm [including frame]
Footnote
This watercolour is after a Jacobite period portrait of Major James Fraser of Castle Leathers (1670–1760) by John Vanderbank (1694–1739). There is version of this portrait hanging in Inverness Town House (ITH74), and also a duplicate in the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh (PGL276) but it is not known which is the original and which the copy.
Major James Fraser of Castle Leathers was a supporter of the Hanoverian government during the Jacobite risings. He later became known as the author of ‘Major Fraser's Manuscript’, which describes his journey to France to bring home the exiled Simon Fraser of Beaufort, later 11th Lord Lovat. Fraser married Janet, daughter of Sir Robert Dunbar, and had two sons and nine daughters. This remarkable portrait shows Major Fraser in the classic Highland outfit of tartan ‘trews’ and plaid. This style of dress was suitable for riding and seems to have been adopted by men of privilege in the early seventeenth century.