Review of "Scottish Portraiture 1644-1714: David and John Scougall and their Contemporaries" by Carla van de Puttelaar

In the opening chapter of their survey text Scottish Painters at Home and Abroad (1975), David and Francina Irwin provide an extremely unfavourable overview of Scottish art prior to the 1707 union. Beyond George Jamesone and his London-born pupil John Michael Wright, ‘Scottish painters of the seventeenth century are known by name and a mere handful of works, the majority of which add up to an image of artistic ineptitude. A few paintings by John (“Old”) Scougall, of the Scougall family of painters, are the exception.’3 Carla van de Puttelaar’s new study represents a firm riposte to the Irwins’ longstanding and largely accepted perspective, in this handsome two-volume work focusing on the Scougalls and their Edinburgh-based portraiture practice.