A portrait of the marine artist, also celebrated for his London subjects, the Latin title roughly translating as 'Samuel Scott, painter of ships and marine views'. He is dressed in the turban that fashionable men wore informally at home when not wearing a wig, and he holds an upright-format drawing of a flagship seen in stern view drying sails. This may allude to van de Velde's portrait of the 'Royal Sovereign' which set the model for such compositions (and of which Scott's older contemporary Peter Monamy - whom he eclipsed - had done a similar picture for presentation to the Painter Stainers' Company). His palette is laid aside behind in a classical niche and the general setting is intended to represent Scott as much as a gentleman as an artist. While a very talented painter, his success owed a great deal to his social nature and ability to mix easily in good company, while his younger and even more gifted contemporary - the short-lived Charles Brooking - did not prosper so well owing, at least in part, to his more artisanal background. [PvdM 6/13]