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Margaret Callander (née Romer) was the wife of John Callander of Westertown, Stirlingshire, who served as member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1807, and was created a baronet in 1798. James Kearney was her son from a previous marriage. The portrait shows the boy in naval uniform, with nautical instruments on the table nearby, and may commemorate his leaving home for a career at sea. The French portraitist Jean Laurent Mosnier had served as a miniature painter to Queen Marie Antoinette but fled France as a political émigré after the Revolution of 1789. He worked in London from early 1791 to 1796 and later resided in Hamburg and St. Petersburg. His work in Britain shows an interesting assimilation of characteristically British touches—the realism of the boy’s hair shedding powder onto his shoulder, for instance—to a basically French, neoclassical style of painting.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016