RECENTLY opened at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh is The Remaking of Scotland, a new exhibition which brings together paintings, sculptures and drawings from the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection.

Subtitled “Nation, Migration, Globalisation 1760 to 1860”, the exhibition explores a century of change during which Scotland was transformed from a leader of the European Enlightenment to a central force in Britain’s industrial and imperial expansion.

As well as featuring pioneering figures whose influence was mostly felt at home in Scotland – such as educationalist Elizabeth Hamilton

also included are portraits of Scots who travelled further afield such as Hugh Montgomerie, the 12th Earl of Eglinton, who served in the French and Indian War of 1754 to 1763, and explorer Admiral John Ross.

Ross’s portrait is shown alongside that of John Sakeouse, a young Arctic Inuit who arrived in Leith in 1816 as a stowaway on a whaling ship.

A year later, Sakeouse joined Ross on his Arctic expedition, acting as a translator and artist.

The bulk of the portraits are by Scottish painters, a notable exception being London artist John Hoppner’s strikingly modern-looking portrait of Sir Thomas Strange, a lawyer who spent his entire career abroad.

He first travelled to Nova Scotia, and then India, where he helped create the modern Indian legal system. “He became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Madras,” says senior curator Dr Lucinda Lax, who put the exhibition together.

“He fused aspects of the legal system in Britain with Hindu traditions, something which was then seen as more sensitive that just imposing British laws. He was known as being a sensitive, benevolent man, and Hoppner paints him like that, at the height of his powers.”

As well as featuring key figures of the period such as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns,

a theme of the exhibition is Scotland’s extensive involvement in the plantation economy of the Caribbean, with its dependence on slave labour.

“I was keen to display a more balanced narrative around some of these more celebrated figures,” says Lax. “We’ve had the Alexander Nasmyth portrait of Burns at the gallery for years and years, and while he is celebrated as a poet, it is clear from his correspondence at the time he is considering travelling to Jamaica.”

This was in the mid-1780s before Burns published first volume of poems. “It’s something we don’t often hear about him,” says Lax. “Just in time, so to speak, he published his first volume, and it was a success.

“This was a period of massive change, and I wanted to wanted the show the shades of light and dark.”

Until June 27 2021, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, free. Tel: 0131 624 6200. www.nationalgalleries.org #ScotPortrait