Andrew Drummond

Johan Joseph Zoffany RA, 1733–1810, German, active in Britain (from 1760) Title The Drummond Family Date ca. 1769 Medium Oil on canvas Dimensions 41 x 63 inches (104.1 x 160 cm) Frame: 48 × 69 inches (121.9 × 175.3 cm) Credit Line Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection Accession Number B1977.14.86 Collection Paintings and Sculpture Curatorial Comment This ambitious group portrait shows three generations of the family of the Scottish goldsmith and banker Andrew Drummond (1688–1769), a widower. The date of Mr. Drummond’s death, in 1769, has generally been taken to indicate a “terminus ante quem” for the painting, but it is not entirely certain that his inclusion in the family group, sitting with his dog and somewhat isolated in the middle, was not a commemorative gesture of reverent piety postmortem. In 1766 Zoffany had painted an oval single-figure portrait of Andrew Drummond that obviously provided him with the model for this part of the composition. In both, he took care to include Dr. Drummond’s expensive snuffbox, his splendid malacca cane with a gold crutch handle, and, most important, the dog (seated this time on the garden seat). The cane and snuffbox are still owned by Drummonds Bank. Mr. Drummond’s son, one of the members of Parliament for Thetford, John Drummond (1723–74), stands to the left with his son and daughter, their ponies, and a groom. John Drummond’s aristocratic wife, Lady Charlotte (née Beauclerk, the family of the dukes of St. Albans), and their two other children complete the right-hand side of the composition. Andrew Drummond’s bank was particularly well patronized by artists, including Thomas Gainsborough, the sculptor Henry Cheere, the plasterer Joseph Rose, the architects Sir William Chambers and Henry Holland, and the landscape gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown. Zoffany himself opened an account at the bank in 1765. Later, members of the Drummond family were crown contractors for the payment of British troops during the American War of Independence.

    -- Angus Trumble, 2007-01

Added by Janet Milburn

Andrew Drummond is your 8th cousin 9 times removed.