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John Alexander Paintings

American, 1680-1775
John Alexander was one of the leading Scottish artists of the 18th century. Born to an Aberdeen doctor, he boasted patrilineal descent from George Jamesone, a purported student of Rubens and Van Dyck, and the founder of a Scottish school of portraiture which found its highest expression in Ramsay and Raeburn in the following century. Alexander travelled to Rome in 1711 where he trained under Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari. He produced engravings after Raphael’s frescoes in the Vatican Loggia, and worked for the Marquess of Annandale to collect paintings and sculpture; he made drawings of the works, and collected some copies for himself, which he brought back to Scotland in 1720. Whilst in Italy, Alexander received commissions from the Medici in Florence, and the exiled Stuart court in Rome, who included the Lord Chief Justice Coke and the Earl of Mar. Lord Mar had arrived in Italy after the failed Jacobite rising of 1715, and even commissioned Alexander on behalf of the exiled Royal family: Alexander wrote to Mar, ‘You will receive from the post the Parnassus of Raphael […] I pray you anew to excuse my weak beginnings to the King’ (Holloway, p. 86). Alexander married Isobel Innes of Tillyfour in 1723 and their son Cosmo was born the following year. Their younger son Charles was sent abroad to the Scots Benedictine College at Ratisbon, and his daughter married George Chalmers, son to Roderick Chalmers and heir to an impoverished baronetcy. Alexander took a number of aristocratic commissions, which included the 4th Earl and Countess of Kinmore; James Hamilton, 5th Duke of Hamilton; and the 7th Earl of Wemyss. He was based in Edinburgh in his later career, painting figures of early Enlightenment Edinburgh, such as George Drummond, the Lord Provost who had envisaged the grid plan of Edinburgh’s New Town. Alexander was a close friend of the architect James Gibbs, and the engraver and antiquary George Vertue, who described the artist as ‘a merry dispos’d gent, [who] laughs eternally’ (Holloway, p. 85). Alexander was a signatory in 1729 of the charter of Scotland’s first art institution, the Academy of St Luke of Edinburgh.
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Artist: John Alexander
LANDSCAPE
By John Alexander
Located in New York, NY
Fall landscape of field of wheat or long grass. yellow, beige and brown colors. American
Category

Late 20th Century American Realist John Alexander Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Portrait of George Gordon, 7th Laird of Buckie (1707-1756)
By John Alexander
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John Alexander (Scottish, 1686-1766) Portrait of George Gordon, 7th Laird of Buckie (Scottish, 1707-1756), c. 1743 Oil on canvas In a carved ebonised frame, with gilded inner slight...
Category

1740s Old Masters John Alexander Paintings

Materials

Oil

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Their daughter, Martha Temple, later Lady Giffard, was a notable figure in her own right. She became her brother William's first biographer and a respected letter-writer, providing a rare female perspective on the events and high society of the time. Another son, also named Sir John Temple, became Attorney General for Ireland and was involved in the turbulent politics surrounding the English Civil War and the Act of Settlement in Ireland. Mary died in November 1638 after giving birth to twins and was buried at Penshurst, Kent. The family's connection to Penshurst Place is a major point of interest as this historic manor was the seat of the Sidney family, a major aristocratic and literary dynasty. The portrait was in the collection of the Mary’s son, Sir William Temple. From there it descended to his daughter, and then to her nephew, the Reverend Nicholas Bacon of Spixworth Park, Norfolk (his mother was Dorothy Temple who died in 1758). 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Dress: black, bodice cut low and square, with lace all round the opening and over shoulders, sleeves with double slashes showing red lining and lace under, falling thin pleated lace collar, black strings tied behind it, a jewel suspended on a black string round the neck, and a double row of agate and silver beads all round to the shoulders. M. In brown veined stone frame. Age 30. Date c.1620. 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Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, was among the grandest country estates of seventeenth-century England—its gardens famously redesigned by Sir William Temple himself and later influencing landscape design across Europe. Sir William's Temple's secretary was Jonathan Swift, who lived at Moor Park between 1689 and 1699. Swift began to write "A Tale of the Tub" and "The Battle of the Books" at Moor Park. Spixworth Park, near Norwich, was an Elizabethan country house in Spixworth, Norfolk, located just north of the city of Norwich. It was home to successive generations of the Bacon family, one of Norfolk’s most distinguished dynasties (later, the Bacon Longe family), who were considerable land owners (owning Reymerston Hall, Norfolk, Hingham Hall, Norfolk, Dunston Hall, Norfolk, Abbot's Hall, Stowmarket, and Yelverton Hall, Norfolk). Spixworth Hall and the surrounding parkland remained in the Longe family for 257 years until 1952, when it was demolished. Rendered with meticulous precision and sumptuous detail, the painting depicts an elegantly dressed woman—her poise, costume, and jewels all communicating a message of wealth, refinement, and social rank. Every brushstroke conveys an artist deeply attuned to the textures of luxury and the nuances of feminine dignity. The sitter’s attire is nothing short of magnificent. Her bodice and sleeves are fashioned from the finest black silk or satin, the fabric absorbing and reflecting light in equal measure, suggesting both depth and lustre. Around her shoulders lies an opulent lace ruff—a deep, radiating lace collar worked in such intricate detail that it testifies to both the artist’s technical skill and the sitter’s extravagant taste. Lace of this quality, especially Venetian or Flemish bobbin lace, was one of the costliest materials available in early seventeenth-century Europe, its weight worth more than gold, and was a marker of prestige that rivalled jewels in value. The painter has taken great care to delineate every loop and scallop of the lace, achieving an almost tactile realism. Pale skin was also a desired beauty standard, sometimes accentuated with contrasting black ribbons or strings. Her jewels amplify this display of affluence. Matching earrings and a delicate coronet or jewelled hair ornament with a feather adorn her hair, which is styled in the modest yet fashionable manner of the time. These details are far from decorative excess—they serve as visual emblems of social standing, refinement, and lineage. Portraits of this kind were statements of both identity and aspiration, intended to project a family’s prosperity and moral virtue to posterity. The portrait was most likely painted in London around 1618-1622. The low-cut, décolletage-revealing neckline was fashionable in the courts of England and France during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean eras (c. 1590s-1610s), this style did not prevail in the public fashion of the Low Countries at this time. This style of lace ruff — delicate needle lace with geometric openwork — was fashionable from c.1615 to 1622, and the jewelled caul (hair net) and lace edging over a stiffened coif are consistent with high-status English women’s portraiture between 1610–1620. The puffed sleeve slash and the use of pink satin beneath black velvet belong squarely to the late Jacobean...
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Portrait of a Gentleman in a Red Coat and Periwig, c.1715-1725; Godfrey Kneller
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Previously Available Items
Foxglove's Journey
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Alexander was born in Beaumont, Texas, in 1945. He received his B.F.A. from Lamar University in Beaumont in 1968 and his M.F.A. from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 19...
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2010s John Alexander Paintings

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Night Heron Stalker
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Artist: John Alexander Title: Night Stalker Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 35" x 30" Framing: Framed Condition: Excellent
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LANDSCAPE 091
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oil painting on canvas framed in brown wood frame depicting an abstracted landscape.
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1990s Contemporary John Alexander Paintings

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LANDSCAPE 091
H 44.5 in W 44.5 in

John Alexander paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic John Alexander paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Alexander in oil paint, paint, canvas and more. Not every interior allows for large John Alexander paintings, so small editions measuring 44 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Jo Cain, Nicholas Berger, and Stephen Wright. John Alexander paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $18,000 and tops out at $18,000, while the average work can sell for $18,000.