Portrait of Lord Charles Gordon (c.1721-1780), aged 17, half-length, in a red coat with a gold-embroidered waistcoat, feigned oval

John Alexander, born in Aberdeen or Edinburgh c. 1690, is first recorded copying Scottish historical portraits in London in 1710. He is known to have travelled to Italy between 1714 and 1719 and was back in Aberdeen by 1723 where he worked before moving to Edinburgh in 1729, where he had a good practice as a portrait painter. The sitter was one of the four sons of Alexander, 2nd Duke of Gordon (1678-1760) and Henrietta, daughter of Charles Morduant, Earl of Peterborough. The 2nd Duke, like his father the 1st Duke, George Gordon (1649-1716), had fought for the Jacobite cause and had been imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle.