English: John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar, K.T., (d.1732), bust-length, in a red coat with the Badge of the Order of the Garter and Sash and Badge of the Order of the Thistle. This is a bust length oil painting of John Erskine, the 6th Earl of Mar, K.T. The Earl is shown in a red coat with the Badge of the Order of the Garter and Sash and the Badge of the Order of the Thistle. Erskine was born at Alloa in Clackmannanshire in 1675, by 1696 he was a member of Parliament and served on the Scottish Privy Council a year later. He played a key role in negotiations of the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland in 1707 and also later served as Secretary of State for Scotland. Erskine earned himself the nickname ‘Bobbing John’ due to his frequent switching of political alliances between the Tories and the Whigs. After falling from favour following the accession of King George I in 1714, Erskine became an ardent Jacobite and participated in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. His poor military leadership at the Battle of Sherifmuir, however, saw him flee to France in exile. This portrait was probably completed during his exile. The artist, Hyacinthe Rigaud was a French painter, draftsman and one of the foremost portrait painters of the later years of the reign of Louis XIV. We see the influence of Anthony van Dyck in the realistic and lifelike features of the Earl’s portrait and his pose but also Rigaud’s own development of the portrait d’apparat, or state portrait, bringing a greater formality to the understated elegance of the portrait tradition of van Dyck. The style that Rigaud established continued to dominate official portraits in France into the 18th Century.