William Douglas

William Douglas held an appointment as Miniature Painter to HRH Princess Charlotte of Wales who, if she had not died shortly after her marriage, would have been Queen of England. He also painted for Prince Leopold, afterwards King of the Belgians.

 A descendant of the family of Douglas of Glenbervie, he was born at Torryburn, Fife, Scotland, 14 Apr 1780, and died in Edinburgh, 30 Jan 1832. His wife was Charlotte Grieve who he married on 7 Aug 1805.

He received a liberal education and showed an interest in painting at an early age. This led to his being placed as an apprentice to the engraver Robert Scott in Edinburgh, the engraver John Burnet being one of his fellow apprentices. However, he decided to specialize in miniature painting, generally producing miniatures in watercolour on ivory, but also full-length pencil drawings with the head often finished in watercolour, and oil paintings. His favoured subjects on a large scale were combined portraits of sitters and their animals, and his expertise at landscape painting meant that he often included extensive landscape backgrounds in both his drawings and oil paintings. Latterly he also painted miniatures of animal subjects alone. His work was usually signed, either with his initials W. D. and the date, or, in the case of his miniatures, in full on the reverse (for example, ‘W. Douglas Edinburgh Pinxt 1816’). He achieved considerable success in Scotland and England, exhibiting at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1808–9 and the Society of Associated Artists between 1808 and 1816. His patrons in Scotland included numerous members of the Edinburgh middle classes and members of the Scottish aristocracy such as the ninth earl of Dalhousie and the fourth duke of Buccleuch, who commissioned him to paint portraits of their families and retainers, such as his oil painting of Thomas Hudson, keeper at Bowhill, of about 1810 (Bowhill, Selkirk).

On 9 July 1817 Douglas was appointed miniature painter in Scotland to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and was commissioned to paint a miniature of his wife, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only daughter of George IV. He then visited London, undertaking several commissions for William Balliol Best of Chilston Park, Kent. Although he subsequently returned to Edinburgh, he continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy in London from 1818 to 1826. In 1822 he painted a miniature of Sir Walter Scott's son, Walter. He died in Edinburgh on 30 January 1832. A pencil and watercolour drawing and a miniature by Douglas are in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.

Douglas and his wife, Charlotte Grieve, had one son and two daughters, the eldest of whom was Miss Archibald Ramsey Douglas (1807–1886), miniature painter, born on 23 April 1807 in Edinburgh. She learned the art of miniature painting from her father. She exhibited four works at the Royal Academy between 1834 and 1841 and nine works at the Royal Scottish Academy between 1835 and 1847, practising from 13 Hart Street, Edinburgh. She died in Edinburgh on 25 December 1886.