On the skull and portraits of George Buchanan / by Karl Pearson.

  • Karl Pearson
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the skull and portraits of George Buchanan / by Karl Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    with such a reputation might well have his portrait painted. How Buchanan travelled to Paris we do not know, very possibly through the Netherlands, and there is a remarkable letter of Languet to Buchanan stating that he lives in sight of Rotterdam which reminds him not only of Erasmus but also of Buchanan. . This eee that he had met Buchanan in Rotterdam. _ While the Bronckhorst and Royal Society types show Buchanan as “aged” if not “agéd,” there exist two other portrait types quite incom- patible with the Bronckhorst type (but more or less compatible with the Royal Society type) which represent, or profess to represent, Buchanan at about 30 and 50 respectively. One of the former type was originally at Hamilton Palace, and from it Harding made an engraving for Pinkerton’s “Scottish Gallery.” By courtesy of the Duke of Hamilton, I have been informed: (1) by the Hamilton Estates Trustees that no such portrait now exists in Hamilton possession, and (2) by Messrs Christie, Manson & Woods, that no such portrait was sold with the Hamilton Palace collections. A portrait of this type on canvas has, however, turned up in the possession of Mr H. B. Buchanan, which is undoubtedly an old painting. It has been in the possession of this family for many years and may possibly have reached them by purchase or gift from Hamilton Palace. I am very grateful for the permission to reproduce it in this lecture. A second, somewhat idealised, version of this portrait is now in the Technical College at Glasgow, which again may be the original Hamilton Palace picture (see Plates VII and VIII). One of the second type of portrait—ze., of Buchanan about 50 years of age—is in the possession of Miss Christie of Bedley. (A slide of this portrait was shown in the course of the lecture.) While the skull of an adult changes to some slight extent with age, the amount is so small as to be quite insignificant compared with the personal equation of an artist. His deviations from truth, even in the case of the most conscientious of the craft, are of quite a different order of magnitude. We can have no hesitation then in applying the Edinburgh skull to the portraits reputed to be those of the Buchanan in the years from 30 to 50, I will now run rapidly through the portraits. I have to thank Miss Ida McLearn for measured drawings of the portraits to each of which we have attached outlines of photographs of the skull in the corresponding attitude. (1) Portrait of a Young Man. Glasgow Technical College Portrait. With a slight allowance for artistic inaccuracy the skull might almost fit
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