Lot Essay
The sitter was the son of James Wauchope, an Edinburgh merchant, and he succeeded his cousin to the estates of Niddrie-Merschell in 1726. In 1734, he married Helen, daughter of Andrew Hume of Kimmerghame, whose pendant portrait by Ramsay was also sold in 1950 (lot 84) (dated 1749; A. Smart, op.cit, p.193, no.534). The sitter's great-granddaughter married Sir Edward Hunter Blair, 4th bt., and the current painting entered the Blairquhan collection in 1950.