James Cruikshank the elder of Langley Park

James Cruikshank and Mrs James Cruikshank, two pendant portraits by Henry Raeburn 1805-1808. Both now in the Frick in New York. 'James Cruikshank (d. 1830), of Langley Park, Montrose, Forfarshire (now County Angus), was a businessman who made a large fortune from sugar plantations in the British West Indies. In 1792 he married Margaret Helen (d. 1823), daughter of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Gerard of Aberdeen. They had six children. No record for the commission of these pendant portraits has been found, but a dating of between 1805 and 1808 has been suggested on stylistic grounds. Raeburn took a very straightforward approach to his sitters and developed a distinctive technique in which broadly brushed detail and strong unmodulated contrasts of light and dark give his figures a sculptural quality. In 1801, Joseph Farington described Raeburn’s portraits as having “an uncommonly true appearance of Nature.”

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.'

Source: Paintings in The Frick Collection: American, British, Dutch, Flemish and German. Volume I. New York: The Frick Collection, 1968. http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:235 and http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:234

Portait of Mrs Cruikshank: James Cruikshank. His eldest son, James Cruikshank. The latter’s youngest son, Augustus Walter Cruikshank. Agnew, 1899. Arthur Sanderson, Edinburgh. J.A. Holms. Knoedler. Frick, 1905.

Portrait of James Cruikshank: James Cruikshank. His eldest son, James Cruikshank. The latter’s youngest son, Augustus Walter Cruikshank. Agnew, 1899. Forbes and Paterson. Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris (1903). 4 Maurice Kann. His sale, June 9, 1911, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, Lot 43, sold for 31,100 francs to Knoedler. Frick, 1911.