| Description Of Item | Oil on canvas, 77 x 63.5 cm
Born in Auchinleck, Ayrshire, John Boswell studied medicine in Leyden, the last British student to be promoted by Herman Boerhaave. He obtained a MD from Leyden in 1736. He was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1770.
Boswell was the uncle of James Boswell, the biographer who described him as: 'an elegant scholar and a physician bred in the school of Boerhaave'. He died in Edinburgh on 15th May 1780 and James Boswell alludes to the death of his uncle thus: 'It pleases me that you express concern for the death of my poor uncle Dr Boswell. He was a very good scholar, knew a great many things, had an elegant taste and was very affectionate. But he had no conduct. His money was all gone, and do you know he was not confined to one woman? He had a strange kind of religion. But I flatter myself he will be e'er long, if he is not already, in Heaven'.
Artist: [William Millar, attributed to] |