ALEXANDER, John Painter and Engraver, Jacobite 1745 ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

   User ID: E573.

  General Notes:

John Alexander, the painter, was the grandson of Marjorie Jamesone, and the great-grandson of the painter George Jamesone. Therefore his son Cosmo was the great-grandson of Marjorie, and the great-great-grandson of George Jamesone.

According to J. L. Caw this John Alexander along with his son Cosmo are listed as "John Alexander and Cosmos Alexander, Picture Drawers" in the list of those "out" in the 1745 uprising in the Aberdeen district. If this is accurate, that both were "out" in 1745, then Cosmos could not have been the grandson of Marjorie Jamesone (unless his father was in the uprising at the age 95 years), as is regularly stated in a variety of publications. Cosmo John Alexander must have been her great grandson, and therefore the 2xgreat grandson of the painter George Jamesone.

Some of the confusion seems to rest on a confusion between the father and son who were both painters, and whose styles were similar. Caw says:

"Considerable dubiety exists as to whether certain portraits should be assigned to the elder or the younger Alexander, for their styles and signatures possess considerable resemblance, and occasionally probability of date is the only determining factor."

The artists' active work periods, if not simultaneous, were overlapping rather than years apart. Since parish registers record that John Alexander, the son of the advocate Johne Alexander and his wife Marjorie Jamesone was baptised in August 1650, and Cosmo John Alexander's parents, John Alexander and Isobel Innes, married in 1723, it is reasonable to postulate that there were indeed two generations between Marjorie and Cosmo, rather than one.




Painting in Britain, 1530 to 1790 by Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse, first published by Penguin in 1953, and republished in 1994, does refer to John Alexander, the father of Cosmo, as the great-grandson of George Jamesone. When we look at the years in which the works attributed to him, this thinking is borne out.

John Alexander was active as an artist for about 50 years, from about 1711 until at least 1757, possibly even 1761, yet some compilers offer the year 1733 as the year of his death. Other sources propose 1766. The website of the BBC "Your Paintings", and the National Galleries Scotland site, both suggest the years 1686-1766 as the probable span of the painter John Alexander's life.




"John Alexander (Scottish, 1686 - about 1766)

John Alexander, son of an Aberdeen doctor, was the great-grandson of George Jamesone, the most famous Scottish painter of the seventeenth century. After some time in London, Alexander travelled to Italy in 1711 where he studied under Giuseppe Chiari and received commissions from the Stuart court in exile. When he returned to Scotland in 1720 he worked for the Duke of Gordon, a Catholic and a staunch Jacobite, and produced his most ambitious work, a ceiling painting for Gordon Castle. Most of his clients were from the north-east of Scotland and many were Jacobites. He took up arms for Prince Charles in the 1745 Rising and became a fugitive after Culloden but was back in Edinburgh working openly by 1748."

from Biography, National Galleries of Scotland




E. K. Waterhouse states John Alexander was born in Edinburgh, and the National Galleries website states (above) that his father was an Aberdeen doctor. No sources are offered for these statements, not have any been found. Another compiler refers to John Alexander's father as a clergyman. This may be a confusion with the John Alexander, whose dates would coincide and who was minister of Kildrummy parish. That man did have son called John, who became the episcopal bishop of Dunkeld. ^{5 7 8 9}

  Research Notes:

TIMELINE OF SOME PAINTINGS OF JOHN ALEXANDER


-1711 Self Portrait John Alexander [1686-1757], Artist

-1720 and 1725 The Rape of Proserpine

"a highly worked compositional sketch for the most challenging work of Alexander's entire career, a huge staircase ceiling decoration in oils on canvas commissioned for Gordon Castle near Fochabers by Alexander Gordon, 5th Marquess of Huntly and 2nd Duke of Gordon. Supposedly measuring twenty-two by twenty feet, the finished ceiling has long since disappeared, possibly in the 1760s or the 1770s during extensive alterations to the Castle. Painted between 1720 and 1725, it was the most ambitious Baroque ceiling in Scotland, for which the artist was paid eighty pounds."

^-1725 James Fraser [1645 - 1731], LLD

-1731 Mrs Skene of Rubislaw

-1731 James Graham [1612 - 1650], 1st Marquis of Montrose [copy after Gerrit van Honthorst

-1732 John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee

-1736 Portrait of an Old Lady, possibly Margaret Gordon, Mrs Alexander Duff of Braco [1668/9 - 1780]

"The date 1736 inscribed on the reverse of the lining canvas places this portrait firmly within the context of Alexander's later career in Scotland following his return to Britain from Italy in 1720. His aristocratic patronage remained concentrated in the north-east of Scotland, requiring him to operate from his Edinburgh studio as a travelling portrait painter throughout the 1720s and the 1730s. By 1933, when this painting was auctioned in Aberdeen, the precise identity of Alexander's elderly sitter and the early history of her portrait had been lost. The provisional re-identification of the sitter as Helen Taylor, also known as Lady Braco, is supported by comparison with a portrait of her in old age painted by William Mosman in 1738."

-1736 William Keith, 4th Earl of Kintore, [c1701-1761]

"William Keith succeeded his brother John as 4th Earl of Kintore in 1758. He never married and on his death in 1761 no-one could prove a claim to his title, which resulted in the earldom lying dormant for seventeen years. The artist John Alexander visited Keith Hall in 1736 and probably painted William Keith at that time. In this portrait, Keith wears a great example of a fashionable knotted wig. The eighteenth century was the golden age of male wig wearing. The full-bottomed periwig, universally worn by the aristocracy during the second half of the seventeenth century, was now only used as formal wear by judges and clergymen. Wigs for daily use were increasingly cropped, while styles and materials '96 human, horse, goat or yak hair '96 continued to change with fashion and personal taste."

-1738 Lord Lewis Gordon, [c1724 - 1754]

"Lord Lewis followed the example of his father by actively supporting the Jacobite cause. In October 1745 he abandoned his career in the Royal Navy and swore allegiance to Prince Charles Edward Stuart. He was appointed lord lieutenant of Aberdeen and Banffshire, with orders to raise another Jacobite army in the north. When the main army headed south to England in November, Lord Lewis remained in Scotland where he recruited, with difficulty, a regiment and defeated government troops at Inverurie on 23 December 1745. After the Battle of Culloden, Lord Lewis escaped to France. He became increasingly mentally unstable and died in exile in Montreuil, not yet thirty."

-1738 Lord Charles Gordon, [1721 - 1780]

"Lord Charles Gordon was the son of the Jacobite, Alexander 2nd Duke of Gordon. Lord Charles fought on the government side, serving in Lord Loudon's 54th Regiment during the 1745 Rising. In March 1746 he took part in the capture of the French ship, Le Prince Charles Stuart, in the Kyle of Tongue. This vessel, with its cargo of over £13,000, had been sent by Louis XV to assist the Jacobites. Its loss, three weeks before the battle of Culloden, was a disaster for them. Lord Charles's younger brother, Lord Lewis, was a Jacobite officer."

-1740 Cosmo George (1720 - 1752), 3rd Duke of Gordon

-1741 William Chalmers of Westburn, Provost of Aberdeen [1738 - 1739 & 1746 - 1747]

-1740-ish Two Daughters of George Alexander, Advocate

-1752 Sir George Drummond [1687 - 1766]

-1755 The 7th Earl of Galloway

-1757 Elizabeth Chudleigh [1720 - 1788], Countess of Bristol, Later Bigamous Duchess of Kingston

-1761 Portrait of a Lady [said to be the Countess of Aberdeen, Mother of George, 4th Earl of Aberdeen

from National Galleries Scotland and BBC Your Paintings ^{7 8}

John married Isobel INNES on 7 May 1723 in Saint Nicholas parish, Aberdeen, Scotland.^{1 2} (Isobel INNES was born about 1700.)

  Marriage Notes:

"ALEXANDER
JOHN
ISOBEL INNES/FR4250 4251 (FR4251)
07/05/1723
168 / A 130 / 224
ABERDEEN"

from Index of Marriages



Old Parish Registers
Saint Nicholas parish Aberdeen
Marriages

"Aberdeen
May 7 1723 As also John Alexander and Isobel Innes being married by M^r. Osborn in the Bride's Chamber payed four pounds Scots" ^{1 2}