Gavin Hamilton (1723–1798)

• Was a Scottish neoclassical history painter.
• Born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1723.
• By 1744 he was in Italy, and probably studied in Rome in the studio of Agostino Masucci.
• From 1748 to 1750 he shared an apartment with James Stuart, Matthew Brettingham and Nicholas Revett, and with them visited Naples and Venice.
• On returning to Britain, he spent several years portrait-painting in London (1751–1756).
• At the end of that period, he returned to Rome.
• He lived there for the next four decades, until his death in 1798.
• As a painter of classical subjects, Hamilton was highly regarded by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, writer Goethe, young sculptor Antonio Canova and others in Rome, but was less appreciated in Britain.

• He did receive a commission to paint the altar piece of Sant'Andrea degli Scozzesi, the Scottish national church in Rome.

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