Henry Raeburn's lost portrait of Robert Burns has gone on display this week at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in the bard's birthplace of Alloway - exactly 230 years after the poet's death.
Rediscovery and authentication
Raeburn's portrait had been missing for more than 200 years until it was discovered during a house clearance and sold at auction in 2025. William Zachs, a Burns scholar and Director of Blackie House Library and Museum in Edinburgh, purchased the work in the hope it could be Raeburn's original, which was in turn confirmed by experts.
Exhibition details
The painting was first displayed at National Galleries Scotland: National from January 22 this year before moving to the National Trust for Scotland's Museum in Burns' Ayrshire hometown. Now on loan to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum until November 1 as part of the Trust's Portrait of a Poet exhibition, the painting was commissioned in 1803 by Cadell & Davies publishers, six years after Burns' death on 21 July 1796, as a way of refreshing his image on future editions of his works.
Artistic significance
Raeburn's work was based on a 1787 portrait of Burns painted by Alexander Nasmyth, which is on display at National Galleries Scotland: Portrait, and over centuries has become the most iconic image of the bard. In Raeburn's interpretation, his expressive brushstrokes, atmospheric light, and warm colour palette created a more romantic portrait than Nasmyth's smaller original.
Comments from officials
Philip Long, Chief Executive of the National Trust for Scotland, said: “The Portrait of a Poet exhibition is a wonderful opportunity to see this long-lost painting of Scotland’s national poet, created by one of the nation’s most esteemed portraitists, in Burns’ very birthplace and in the context of the Trust’s significant collection of Burns manuscripts, archives, and artefacts. We are very grateful to William Zachs for his rediscovery of this legendary portrait and to the Blackie House Library and Museum for lending us this important work so it may be finally seen and enjoyed once again. Exactly 230 years after his death, it is remarkable that we are still discovering and recovering items related to Burns’ life and continuing to learn more about the fascination with him that began in his own lifetime and which rightly persists to today, given his immense cultural contribution. We hope that many people will come to Alloway to see this long-lost portrait of Burns by one of Scotland’s greatest artists in the place where Burns’ life began.”
Sarah Beattie, Head of Curatorial at the National Trust for Scotland, said: “We are so pleased that this special painting will temporarily join the 2,500 items in the largest collection of Burns artefacts and sit less than half a mile from the cottage where the poet was born, and where the first Burns supper was held after his death. As part of the Portrait of a Poet exhibition, we will also feature items from the Trust’s collection, including letters from Henry Raeburn to Cadell & Davies about the painting, and a copy of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, ‘The Edinburgh Edition’, featuring a copperplate after Nasmyth’s painting by Edinburgh engraver John Beugo. Burns also sat for Beugo, rather than working solely from the oil painting, and we are displaying a 1787 letter from Burns writing that he was having his ‘Phiz,’ a colloquial term for face, ‘done by an eminent engraver.’ Although he only lived 37 years, we are piecing together the intricacies of Burns’ life and telling the story of one of Scotland’s most celebrated writers.”
Support and further information
Alongside the generous loan from the collection of William Zachs, Blackie House Library and Museum, the Trust is grateful to the National Galleries of Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA for their support with the exhibition. For more information about Robert Burns Birthplace Museum and the Burns Collection, which is available to view in full online, visit nts.org.uk/burns.
