拍品專文
This splendid and unique life size portrait was commissioned at Windsor by Her Majesty Queen Victoria in May 1883, two months after John Brown's death. It is interesting to note that Sohn painted the above portrait under the critical eye of Queen Victoria and it was she who must have instructed the miniature of herself be placed on the table on the right hand side of the portrait. In a letter to Prince Arthur on the 16 May, Queen Victoria informed him that Sohn was at Windsor and had painted a `wonderfully fine' portrait of Brown which she described as `so like'.
Records show that on the 28 January 1901, only six days after the death of Queen Victoria and two days before her funeral Berty, the future King Edward VII ordered that the portrait of John Brown be deleted from the inventory in Windsor Castle and sent to John Brown's brother, William at Crathie.
Having only a small cottage the picture was stored in a byre for forty-three years emerging in a very dirty state in war-torn Aberdeen in 1944 at the local auction rooms of Reeds where it sold for ¨4.12/6, after which it appeared at Christie's Rooms in 1963, to be bought by Mr Fernyclough who sold it in 1965 to the Scottish Tartan Society.
Records show that on the 28 January 1901, only six days after the death of Queen Victoria and two days before her funeral Berty, the future King Edward VII ordered that the portrait of John Brown be deleted from the inventory in Windsor Castle and sent to John Brown's brother, William at Crathie.
Having only a small cottage the picture was stored in a byre for forty-three years emerging in a very dirty state in war-torn Aberdeen in 1944 at the local auction rooms of Reeds where it sold for ¨4.12/6, after which it appeared at Christie's Rooms in 1963, to be bought by Mr Fernyclough who sold it in 1965 to the Scottish Tartan Society.