St. Cecilia

St. Cecilia by Cosmo Alexander, 1757

Cosmo Alexander (1724-1772) was an Aberdonian painter, who lived his life in the Jacobite and Catholic communities, so much so that he had to go into Roman exile after the rising of 1745. He studied in Livorno and Paris in 1751-52 before returning to live in London (in a house inherited from the architect James Gibbs) with frequent visits to Scotland. The S. Cecilia must have been painted in the mid 1750s, very much in the style which Alexander had learned in Rome, and donated to the Aberdeen Musical Society in 1757.