John McLaren, Lord McLaren, 1831 - 1910. Judge

Lord McLaren served as a Scottish judge of considerable intellectual distinction — a Lord of Session and a legal scholar — before Lavery painted his official portrait in 1902. By that year Lavery had become the preferred portraitist for Scottish legal, civic, and aristocratic sitters, following his triumph with the massive state portrait of Queen Victoria's visit to the Glasgow International Exhibition in 1888. Judicial portraiture in Britain adhered to a long formal tradition: dark robes, an interior setting suggesting authority, and a bearing that combined dignity with accessibility. Lavery worked fluently within this tradition while injecting his characteristic tonal immediacy. The National Galleries Scotland holds the work as part of its collection of Scottish legal and civic portraiture.

Lavery organised the composition around the deep blacks of legal robes offset by the warm flush of the sitter's face and the faint glint of white collar and cuffs. The robes are handled with broad, simplified strokes that read as form, while the face receives the tightest, most considered paint application in the work.