John Alexander (1686 –) was a Scottish painter and engraver of the 18th century. He studied in Italy under Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari.
Alexander was the son of a doctor from Aberdeen. The painter George Jamesone was his paternal great-grandfather.[1] He spent some time in London before going to Rome in 1711. There he studied under Giuseppe Chiari and received commissions from the exiled Stuart court.[1] Following his return to Scotland in 1720[1] he was commissioned by the 2nd Duke of Gordon (whom he had probably first met in Italy) to decorate a staircase at Gordon Castle with a painting depicting the Rape of Proserpine.[2] This was based on a work by his master, Chiari, in the Palazzo Barberini.[3] Alexander's work at the castle was later destroyed, but his sketch for the work survives in the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland.[1]
Many of his clients, including Gordon, were Jacobites, and Alexander himself took part in the rising of 1745, becoming a fugitive after the Battle of Culloden.[1] He resumed his career, however, and was working openly in Aberdeen by 1748.[4]
He was active as a printmaker, and etched some plates after Raphael's frescoes in the Loggie of the Vatican. In gratitude for the patronage of Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, he dedicated a set of six, dated 1717 and 1718, to him;[5] Joseph Strutt wrote that they did Alexander no kind of credit, and termed them slight, loose, and incorrect etchings.[3]
The portrait painter Cosmo Alexander was his son.[4]
works by John Alexander in British public collections