The Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Located in an amazing building right the centre of Edinburgh, the Portrait Gallery offers a great collection of Scottish artists and artworks related to the story of Scotland, dated from the seventeenth to the twentyth century. Here you can start your visit:

This dramatic exhibition considers the Jacobites - those loyal to the deposed Stuart dynasty at home and abroad. The term ‘Jacobite’ derives from ‘Jacobus’, the Latin form of James, and describes those who supported James VII and II, the exiled Catholic monarch of Scotland, England and Ireland, and his heirs.

This exhibition re-examines some major Scottish figures, from Thomas Carlyle to Andrew Carnegie, raises questions about the nature of hero-worship and the values that were upheld by our Victorian forebears, and considers the influence exerted by military men, scientists and  and inventors who helped shape the modern world. Female artists, scientists, writers and suffragists have a strong presence, and Queen Victoria’s personal influence on the age over which she presided institutionally is examined.

Celebrated as the centre of classical and modern European civilisation, Italy held many attractions for eighteenth-century Scots. Artists and architects came to study its matchless heritage. Wealthy aristocrats refined their minds and manners in a world of glamour and learning.