This very meticulous oil is full of wonderful detail, yet presents a forceful portrait of a remarkable Edinburgh medic. Alexander Morison was a pioneer of psychiatric medicine, and the picture was painted by one of his patients, the famous painter Richard Dadd, who was well established when he began to suffer from delusions and murdered his father, believing him to be the devil.
It was painted in 1852, at the end of Morison's 17 years as consultant to London's Bethlem Asylum. The background shows his home on the Firth of Forth at Newhaven and the fisherwives are almost certainly based on photos taken by Hill and Adamson. Morison, 72, is formally dressed as befits an eminent consultant.
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