Robert Herdman

Robert Inerarity Herdman RSA RSW (17 September 1829 – 10 January 1888) was a Victorian artist specialising in portraiture and historical compositions. He is also remembered for a series of pastoral scenes featuring young girls.[1]

Robert Herdman by William Brodie, 1859, Scottish National Portrait Gallery
John Campbell Shairp by Robert Herdman (1886)
The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
Herdman's house at 12 Bruntsfield Crescent, Edinburgh
Robert Herdman's grave, Grange Cemetery

He received commissions from most Scottish city councils, and is work is found in many galleries including the Royal Scottish Academy and National Portrait Gallery, London.

He was elected an Associate of the RSA in 1861 and became a Fellow in 1863. He exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution in London 1861–1887. He exhibited in Philadelphia in 1876 and Paris in 1878.[2]

Life

Herdman was born in Rattray near Blairgowrie in Perthshire. He is known to have originally studied divinity at the University of St. Andrews but abandoned this and came to Edinburgh in 1847 to train under Robert Scott Lauder as an artist. He was a friend of Professor John Stuart Blackie, who instilled in him a love of the Celtic Revival reflected in his later works.[2]

He lived mainly in Edinburgh. In the 1860s he lived at 32 Danube street.[3] In the 1880s he is listed as living at 12 Bruntsfield Crescent[4]

He died in Edinburgh and is buried there in the Grange Cemetery on the outer side of the northern slope to the central vaults.

Family

He was married to Emma Abbott. Their son William Abbott Herdman FRSE was an eminent oceanographer who served on the Challenger Expedition.

His son Robert Duddingston Herdman (1863–1922) was also an artist.[5]

Public works

This list is derived from multiple sources,[2][6]

Other known portraits
  • The Rev William Scott-Moncrieff
  • Jane Amelia Wilson (later Mrs. Balfour-Melville)

References
  1. "Robert Inerarity Herdman (1829 – 1888, Scottish) | I AM A CHILD". iamachild.wordpress.com. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
  2. http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/benezit/B00086410?q=herdman&search=quick&pos=3&_start=1#firsthit
  3. Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1859-60
  4. "Post Office Edinburgh and Leith directory". Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  5. "Art in Scotland". Retrieved 25 January 2017.
  6. 55 paintings by or after Robert Herdman at the Art UK site
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