Newspaper man got project off the ground

Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle was among those who campaigned for Scotland to have its own national portrait gallery but it was The Scotsman proprietor John Ritchie Findlay who was the driving force behind its opening in 1889.

Findlay picked architect Robert Rowand Anderson to design the purpose-built gallery. He paid for the grand, Gothic building, built from red sandstone at a cost of 70,000, and established an endowment to support it but remained anonymous as long as possible.

The frieze in the main hall underlined its place as a shrine to Scottish portraiture, with 150 figures, from the national bard Robert Burns to painter Sir Henry Raeburn, Bonnie Prince Charlie and Lady Macbeth.