PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF LORD JOHN KERR ATTRIBUTED TO WILLIAM AIKMAN (SCOTTISH 1682-1731) Marriage portrait of the Marchioness of Lothian (née Margaret Nicholson), wife of the 3rd Marquess of Lothian oil on canvas 125 x 102cm (49 1/4 x 40in) Inscribed twice with the Lothian Newbattle Abbey inventory number 54 (one crossed through) PROVENANCE:  William and Margaret Kerr, 3rd Marquess and Marchioness of Lothian Newbattle Abbey Thence by descent Painted in the first decade of the 18th century, this and the following lot are very probably a pair of marriage portraits. Margaret Nicholson married William Kerr, 3rd Marquis of Lothian sometime before 1710 when their son the 4th Marquis was born. The Marchioness died at Newbattle Abbey in 1759. The present work is inscribed with the inventory number 54 twice lower left (one crossed through). The deletion of inventory numbers on canvases and their frequent replacement with an identical number was a feature peculiar to the Lothian collection at Newbattle Abbey, the former monastery that came into the Kerr family at the time of the Reformation in the 16th century.