Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Modelled on the Doges Palace in Venice, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery has an impressive gothic red sandstone façade designed by Sir Robert Rowand Anderson. As well as classical subjects such as Mary Queen of Scots and Bonnie Prince Charlie, the gallery is home to more contemporary Scottish portraits, such as those of Sean Connery (by John Bellany), Robbie Coltrane and Tilda Swinton (both John Byrne, whose self-portrait is also at the gallery). In 2009, the gallery was closed for the first major refurbishment in its 120- year history, re-opening to great acclaim in late 2011.

Currently on show are a host of long-term displays exploring different aspects of Scottish Portraiture. They include: a set of portraits of people painted wearing their tartan in the 18th century; a display looking at the relationship between philosopher David Hume and painter Allan Ramsay; Thomas Annan's haunting photographs of a condemned Victorian Glasgow slum; a corner devoted to George Jamesone, widely accepted as Scotland's first great portrait painter; an investigation into the Jacobites' self-presentation through portraiture; military engineer John Slezer's landscape engravings from the late 17th and early 18th centuries; a survey of how and why women had their portraits painted in the 19th century; an exhibition of work showing how sport was transformed by wider social and infrastructural changes in the last two centuries; a section focusing on the Reformation; and finally a group of portraits of the heroes of Scotland's great industrial and cultural transformation of 1750–1850.