Cosmo Alexander (1724 – 1772)

• Was a Scottish portrait painter.
• Alexander was the son of John Alexander, a painter and engraver from Aberdeen.
• In 1745 he took part in the Jacobite Rising.
• Like many other prominent Jacobites he fled to Europe, arriving in Rome in 1747.

• He was commissioned to paint Bonnie Prince Charlie, and continued to paint portraits of the exiled Jacobites as he traveled through Italy and then France over the following years.

• He settled in London in 1754.

• Over the following decade he worked in London, Scotland and the Netherlands, joining the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1765. 

• In 1766 Alexander moved to Philadelphia and painted portraits of the Scottish communities of the American colonies.

• In 1768, William Franklin, the Royal Governor of New Jersey, invited Alexander to his mansion in Burlington to do commission work.

• The next year, in Newport, Rhode Island, Alexander took on an assistant named Gilbert Stuart, who was then 14 years old.

• Alexander and Stuart traveled in the southern states, and in 1771 Alexander returned with Stuart to Scotland. 

• Alexander died in Edinburgh on 25 August 1772. 

• Next