Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Edinburgh art gallery, founded in 1882. It aims to illustrate Scottish history with portraits of Scots distinguished in any activity, and paintings which illustrate the history of Scottish dress and other historical developments such as topographical changes. The sequence of portraits starts in the 16th century with Mary Queen of Scots, and continues without serious breaks to the present day (though living people are excepted).

Portraits include those of Flora Macdonald, David Hume, James Boswell, Robert Burns, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Carlyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, J M Barrie, Ramsay Macdonald, James Maxton, and Alexander Fleming. There is a fine group of portraits by Henry Raeburn, and major works by Lely, Kneller, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Wilkie.

The gallery is one of the three National Galleries of Scotland, administered by one director under a single board of trustees; the National Gallery of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art are also in Edinburgh.