Two country-house treasures in the Borders

Picture Gallery
Paxton House, Berwick-upon-Tweed

Curved Stream
Traquair House, Innerleithen, until 31 October

In the Regency picture gallery at Paxton House hangs a full-length portrait of a young man in striking yellow breeches. The horse at his side is rubbing its bridle on its knee, the way horses do, while the man looks out at the viewer with the composed confidence of a fellow who would go on to be professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.

This is John Wilson, or ‘Christopher North’, writer, critic, advocate and, according to one contemporary, nothing less than ‘a true upright, knocking-down, poetical, prosaic, moral, professional, hard-drinking, fierce eating, good-looking, honorable and straightforward Tory.’ The painting is one of several at Paxton by the great portraitist Sir Henry Raeburn, and it looks splendid and appropriate hanging here in Scotland’s largest private gallery. The freshly rehung exhibition comprises more than thirty works on loan from the National Galleries of Scotland with whom Paxton has enjoyed partner status since 1992.

Raeburn’s ‘Professor John Wilson’

We are not short of Raeburn portraits in Scotland but it is impossible to tire of his work.