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Alexander Runciman

Artist: Brown I, John · 1752-1787

Alexander Runciman

The son of a Jeweller and Watchmaker, Brown was born in Edinburgh where he attended the Trustees' Academy. In 1771 he travelled to Italy where he…

The son of a Jeweller and Watchmaker, Brown was born in Edinburgh where he attended the Trustees' Academy.

In 1771 he travelled to Italy where he made accurate drawings of the ruins and remains of Antiquity.

Returning to Britain in 1780 Brown enjoyed success with his small pencil portraits, such as this, which he would execute in an hour's sitting.

He became a close friend of Alexander Runciman who was appointed Master of the Trustees' Academy in 1772 following his own return from Rome, where the two possibly first met, in 1771.

In 1864, acting on the advice of its Honorary Professor of Ancient Literature David Laing LLD, the Royal Scottish Academy paid for the erection of a tablet on the wall of Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh in Memory of Runciman and his artist brother John.

Laing also owned a wonderful oil self portrait by Runciman in which John Brown shares the scene. That painting, dated 1784, is now in the National Galleries of Scotland to whom it was gifted in 2009 (ref PG3545)