ملف:Portrait of John, Lord Swinton (by Henry Raeburn).jpg

English: Sir Henry Raeburn R.A., P.R.S.A. (1756-1823)

Portrait of John, Lord Swinton (1723-1797)

oil on canvas

88 by 67.5 cm., 34½ by 26½ in.

half length, seated, wearing the robes of Lord Commissioner of the High Court of Justiciary and a black tricorn hat

The sitter was born in Stockbridge near Edinburgh, the eldest of twelve children of John Swinton, an advocate, and his wife Mary Semple. On 23rd June 1758 he married Margaret, daughter of John Mitchelson of Middleton, by whom he had six sons and seven daughters. His legal career began in 1743 when at the age of twenty he was admitted advocate and in 1754 Sheriff-Depute of Perthshire. In 1782 he was elevated to the bench and in 1788 was made a Lord of Justiciary.

As a lawyer he took an active role in the reform of law, notably in relation to entails, and in 1779 produced an influential pamphlet on the question of weights and measures in Scotland. His most important pamphlet, produced in 1789, concerned such matters as limiting litigation in small cases and reviving jury trials for certain civil actions. Lord Cockburn, after calling him 'in his person large and heavy' continued that 'it is only a subsequent age that has discovered his having possessed a degree of sagacity, for which he did not get credit while he lived.'

This fine portrait dates from circa 1788 when the sitter was elevated to Lord of Justiciary. It is from the same period as Raeburn's portrait of Robert Dundas, Lord Arniston of 1787, which is the first painting known to have been painted by the artist after his return from Rome.