Gavin Hamilton was born at Murdieston, Lothian, Scotland in 1723. He was educated at the University of Glasgow and studied in Rome in the 1740s, under Agostino Masucci (c.1691-1758). From 1748 Hamilton lived mainly in Rome, where he was a member of the neo-classical circle of Mengs and Winckelmann. As an artist, Hamilton concentrated on history paintings and he is one of the few British artists (with James Barry, John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West) to make a significant contribution in that field. He was particularly interested in Homeric subjects, in his treatment of which he was influenced by Poussin, as well as by the Antique (Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus, 1763, National Gallery of Scotland). His pictures in that vein were small in number and today are generally regarded as ponderous, but they became well-known through engravings, and greatly influenced the development of the neo-classical style amongst both his contemporaries and the younger generation, including the Frenchman Jacques-Louis David. From the advantages of a liberal education, being perfectly familiar with the works of the great masters of Grecian and Roman literature, he displayed a highly classic taste in the choice of his subjects; and the style at which he always and successfully aimed, made him at least equal to his most celebrated contemporaries. Aside from a few portraits of friends, the Hamilton family and British people on the Grand Tour, most of his paintings, many of which are very large in size, were of classical Greek and Roman subjects. His most famous is a cycle of six paintings from Homer’s Iliad, which, as engraved under his eye by Domenico Cunego, were disseminated widely and were enormously influential. Also influential was his Death of Lucretia (1760s), also known as the Oath of Brutus, which inaugurated a series of ‘oath paintings’ that include Jacques-Louis David’s famous Oath of the Horatii (1784). After a brief return home, Hamilton executed some portraits in London. Few of his portraits may be found in British collections and of these, two full lengths of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton are considered the best. His group portrait The 8th Duke of Hamilton with Dr John Moore and Ensign John Moore, (1775–7; National Gallery of Scotland) is also notable. Hamilton returned to Rome in 1756 and dwelt there for the rest of his life. He met and encouraged most British artists who visited Rome in the second half of the 18th century, but remained better known on the Continent than in Britain, where his name was more familiar for his lucrative activities in selling Old Masters and classical antiquities. He painted the altar piece of the Scottish national church in Rome, Sant’ Andrea degli Scozzesi, depicting The Martyrdom of St Andrew. Hamilton undertook excavations at Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli in 1769-71, at first occasioned by the need of marble for his sculptor to restore sculptures. His excavators reopened the outlet of a low-lying swampy area and after some weeks’ work underground by lamp-light and up to their knees in muddy water, retrieved sculptures from the muck where they had been thrown with timber when the sacred grove was levelled. From 1771 Hamilton excavated other sites in the environs of Rome: Cardinal Chigi’s Tor Colombaro, 1771-72, Albano, 1772, Monte Cagnolo 1772-73, Ostia 1774-75, the Villa Fonseca on the Caelian Hill in Rome, ‘Roma Vecchia’ (the Villa dei Quintili), 1775 Castel di Guido and Gabii. Many of the works of art recovered were sold to his British clients, most notably to Charles Townley and to William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne at Shelburne, later Lansdowne House, London. In 1773 he published a folio volume, entitled ‘Schola Picturae Italiae’, (The Italian School of Painting) composed of a number of line engravings by Cunego, making part of the collection of Piraneisi. In it he traced the different styles from Leonardi da Vinci, to the Carraccis; all the drawings were by Hamilton. In 1785 he bought Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks (National Gallery, London) and sent it to London for sale. Hamilton died on Rome on 4 January 1798. All accounts of his life concur in stating, that however exalted his genius might be, it was far surpassed by the benevolence and liberality of his character. His Agrippina Landing at Brindisium with the Ashes of Germanicus (1765-72) and Priam Pleading with Achilles for the Body of Hector may both be found in the collection of the Tate in London.