Six-year-old George Drummond is shown on his pony, the object of admiring gazes from his foster brother and sister. George became a member of the family bank, married, had four children, and died at age 49. By contrast, by 1821, his father had taken up a life of gambling and dissipation, abandoned his wife and children, and was living with the wife of a naval officer.
The preeminent painter of the Scottish Enlightenment, Raeburn was particularly gifted at naturalistic depictions of children.
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Fig. 1. Painting in frame: overall
Fig. 2. Painting in frame: corner
Fig. 3. Painting in frame: angled corner
Artwork Details
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Title:The Drummond Children
Artist:Sir Henry Raeburn (British, Stockbridge, Scotland 1756–1823 Edinburgh, Scotland)
Date:ca. 1808–9
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:94 1/4 x 60 1/4 in. (239.4 x 153 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Mary Stillman Harkness, 1950
Accession Number:50.145.31
The principal sitter is George Drummond (1802–1851), elder son of George Harley Drummond (1783–1855), of whom the Museum owns a portrait also by Raeburn (49.142), and his wife, née Margaret Munro. George became a partner in the family’s London bank, Drummonds of Charing Cross, at the age of twenty-five (Hector Bolitho and Derek Peel, The Drummonds of Charing Cross, London, 1967) and in 1831 married Marianne, daughter of Edward Berkeley Portman. The couple had four daughters and a son, George James Drummond. When the latter lent the picture in 1876, it was identified as “Master Drummond, attended by his foster-brother and sister,” while in 1895 it was called "George Drummond, his Sister Margaret, and his Foster-Brother.” There does not appear to be any additional published evidence for the existence of either of the other two children. The portrait is usually dated about 1808 or 1809, on the presumption that George was six or seven years old at the time it was painted. George Harley and Margaret's second son, Henry, was born in 1812 and cannot be represented here.
This painting is almost exactly the same size as the Museum's portrait of George Harley Drummond, and the heads of father and son would be more or less level were the two portraits to hang side by side. George's elevated station with respect to the other children, combined with their rather servile upward glances, makes his dynastic role clear, even without the aureole of blond light around his head. While this portrait descended to the sitter’s grandson, that of the boy’s father must have been sold by the sitter himself or by some other family member. The Museum received the two companion portraits with their entirely separate histories from two different donors within a year.
[2010; adapted from Baetjer 2009]
the principal sitter's only son, George James Drummond (by 1876–d. 1917); his son, George Henry Drummond, Pitsford Hall, Northampton (from 1917; sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, New York, until 1925; sold to Harkness]; Mr. and Mrs. Edward S. Harkness, New York (1925–his d. 1940); Mary Stillman (Mrs. Edward S.) Harkness, New York (1940–d. 1950)
Wrexham, Wales. Art Gallery. "Art Treasures of North Wales & the Border Counties," July 22, 1876, no. 333 (as "Master Drummond, attended by his foster-brother and sister," lent by G. Drummond).
London. Grafton Galleries. "Fair Children," 1895, no. 146 (as "George Drummond, his Sister Margaret, and his Foster-Brother," lent by George Drummond).
New York. M. Knoedler & Co. "Pictures by Raeburn," April 13–27, 1925, no. 5.
Glasgow. Palace of Arts. "Empire Exhibition," 1938, no. 34 (lent by Edward S. Harkness).
New York. Century Club. "Masters of Portraiture," March 6–April 3, 1938, no. 8 (lent by Edward S. Harkness).
London. Royal Academy of Arts. "Scottish Art," January 6–March 11, 1939, no. 105 (lent by Edward S. Harkness).
New York. World's Fair. "Masterpieces of Art: European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300–1800," May–October 1939, no. 291 (lent by Edward S. Harkness).
London. National Portrait Gallery. "Treasures and Curiosities, Drummonds at Charing Cross 1717–1967," May 17–July 28, 1968, unnum. brochure.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "Masterpieces of Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 16–November 1, 1970, unnumbered cat. (p. 97).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries," November 14, 1970–June 1, 1971, not in catalogue.
Edinburgh. Scottish National Portrait Gallery. "Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn, 1756–1823," August 1–October 5, 1997, no. 37 (as "George Drummond 1802–51, his sister Margaret and his foster brother").
London. National Portrait Gallery. "Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn, 1756–1823," October 24, 1997–February 1, 1998, no. 37.
"Fair Children at the Grafton Galleries." Pears' Pictorial 1 (June 1, 1895), ill. p. 20.
James Greig. Sir Henry Raeburn, R.A.: His Life and Works. London, 1911, p. 43, as in the collection of George Drummond.
E. Rimbault Dibdin. Raeburn. London, 1925, p. 69.
C. H. Collins Baker. British Painting. London, 1933, p. 164, pl. 110.
H[arry]. B. W[ehle]. "Paintings Lent from the Harkness Collection." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 28 (January 1933), p. 12.
Helen Comstock. "The New York World's Fair Loan Exhibition of Masterpieces." Connoisseur 103 (June 1939), pp. 320–21, ill., as painted about 1810.
"Masterpieces of Painting at the New York World's Fair." The Studio 118 (August 1939), ill. p. 55.
"Illustrations of Outstanding Harkness Gifts." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 10 (October 1951), ill. p. 66.
"List of Gifts and Bequests of Mr. and Mrs. Harkness." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 10 (October 1951), p. 86.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 80.
Michael Levey. "The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries." 20,000 Years of World Painting. Ed. Hans L. C. Jaffé. New York, 1967, p. 282, ill. (color).
David Irwin and Francina Irwin. Scottish Painters at Home and Abroad, 1700–1900. London, 1975, p. 159, pl. 72.
Walter Liedtke. The Royal Horse and Rider: Painting, Sculpture, and Horsemanship, 1500–1800. New York, 1989, p. 315, pls. 32 (color), 201.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 197, ill. p. 196.
Duncan Thomson. Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn, 1756–1823. Exh. cat., Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Edinburgh, 1997, pp. 24, 126, 128–31, no. 37, ill. (color, overall and detail), dates the portrait 1808 or 1809.
Katharine Baetjer. "British Portraits in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57 (Summer 1999), pp. 61–63, ill. (color, overall and details).
Katharine Baetjer. British Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575–1875. New York, 2009, pp. 170, 172–73, no. 84, ill. (color).
Malcolm Warner. "Books: British Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Burlington Magazine 153 (April 2011), p. 257, reviews Baetjer 2009.
Sarah Cowan. editor and producer in the Digital Department, shares stories submitted by Met staff and visitors on the significance of the Museum in their lives on its 150th anniversary.
Sir Henry Raeburn (British, Stockbridge, Scotland 1756–1823 Edinburgh, Scotland)
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