From the time he returned home until 1809, when he purchased the
adjoining property off St Bernard's, Raeburn lived at Deanhaugh.[1]
The junction of these small estates enabled him to feu the outlying
parts on plans prepared by himself, architecture being one of his
hobbies, and his family's connection with them is still marked by such
names as Raeburn Place, Ann Street (after his wife), Leslie Place, St
Bernard's Crescent, and Deanhaugh Street. Some years earlier
continuous increase in the number of his clients had rendered a change
of studio desirable, and in 1795 he moved from George Street to 16 (now
32) York Place where he had built a specially designed and spacious
studio, with a suite of rooms for the display of recently completed
work or of portraits he had painted for himself. At a later date, when
exhibitions were inaugurated in Edinburgh (first series 1808-13), he
lent the show-rooms to the Society of Artists which organised them.
This action was typical of Raeburn's cordial relations with his
fellow-artists, most of whom were poor and socially unimportant; and
only a year before his death he championed the professional artists
when, partly in opposition to the Royal Institution, they proposed to
form an Academy. Incidentally also, the letter written on that
occasion, which I have transcribed in full in _Scottish Painting; Past
and Present_, gives an indication of the extent of his practice, of how
fully he was engaged.
Until 1808 Raeburn's career had been one unbroken success, but in that
year, following upon the failure of his son, financial disaster
overtook him. The firm of "Henry Raeburn and Company, merchants,
Shore, Leith," consisted of Henry Raeburn, Junior, and James Philip
Inglis, who had married Anne Leslie, the artist's step-daughter, but
neither the _Edinburgh Gazette_ nor the local Directory states the
nature of their business. In the proceedings in connection with
Raeburn's own bankruptcy, however, he is described as "portrait-painter
and underwriter." What underwriter exactly means is uncertain, but it
may be that the son was a marine-insurance broker, that Raeburn himself
took marine-insurance risks. In any case his ruin seemed complete.
Not only did he lose all his savings but he had even to sell the York
Place studio, of which he was afterwards only tenant. He failed, paid
a composition, and, two years later, proposed settling in London. By
those of his biographers who have noticed it at all, this failure and
the contemplated removal south have been very closely associated. But
a more careful examination of the whole circumstances makes such an
assumption rather doubtful. Alexander Cunningham, in a letter written
on 16th February 1808, tells a correspondent--"I had a walk of three
hours on Sunday with my worthy friend, Raeburn. He had realised nearly
L17,000, which is all gone. He has offered a small composition, which
he is in hopes will be accepted. He quits this to try his fate in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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