Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum devoted to portraits connected with Scotland, and it also preserves the country’s national photography collection. Its home is the striking red sandstone Gothic Revival building on Queen Street, designed by Robert Rowand Anderson and built between 1885 and 1890. The gallery opened in 1889, making this building part of Edinburgh’s cultural life for well over a century.
Look at the pointed arches around the entrance and the four octagonal corner towers, each finished with sharply carved Gothic pinnacles. Sculpted figures of notable Scots occupy niches around the exterior, while the entrance hall contains a long painted procession of Scottish historical figures. These additions were created because the collection once lacked enough portraits of Scots from the medieval period.
The building originally accommodated both the portrait gallery and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland’s museum. When those antiquities collections later moved elsewhere, the portrait gallery expanded through the whole structure. A major refurbishment restored the internal arrangement and increased the gallery space by 60 percent.
Inside, the collection ranges from paintings and sculpture to prints, drawings, and photographs. Among its early treasures is a portrait of James IV dating from 1507; its portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots were painted after her death, not from life.
