Henry Raeburn
Sir Henry Raeburn was a Scottish portrait painter and Scotlands first significant portrait painter since the Union to remain based in Scotland. He served as Portrait Painter to King George IV in Scotland.
Raeburn was born the son of a manufacturer in Stockbridge, on the Water of Leith a former village now within the city of Edinburgh. His ancestors were believed to have been soldiers, and may have taken the name Raeburn from a hill farm in Annandale, held by Sir Walter Scotts family. Orphaned, he was supported by his older brother and placed in Heriots Hospital, where he received an education. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to the goldsmith James Gilliland of Edinburgh, and various pieces of jewellery, mourning rings and the like, adorned with minute drawings on ivory by his hand, still exist. Soon he took to the production of carefully finished portrait miniatures meeting with success and patronage, he extended his practice to oil painting, at which he was selftaught. Gilliland watched the progress of his pupil with interest, and introduced him to David Martin, who had been the favourite assistant of Allan Ramsay the Latter, and was now the leading portrait painter in Edinbur
Source: Wikipedia