(1743 - 84), e. s. of James Moray, 13th Laird of Abercairny; m. 1783 Clementina Stewart.
1759 - 63 Turin (Sep. 1759 - May 1761), Genoa (May), Pisa (by 20 May 1761); Rome (by 25 Nov. 1762), Naples (Nov. 1762 - Apr. 1763)
Moray entered the Academy at Turin on 6 November 1759.1 His health was not robust and at times 'his vivacity exceeded the strength of his Constitution' but, wrote James Stuart Mackenzie, 'He is mighty good temper'd'. He did not fence 'lest it be too violent for his Breast', but was studying music, French, riding and dancing; he dreaded going back to Nice and having a governor (which he knew would happen if his health grew worse).2 By May 1761 Moray was in Genoa planning to leave by the 6th,3 and later that month he was in Pisa, seeking a cure for the 'complaint in his breast'.4 In 1762 he sat to Batoni in Rome (priv. coll.; Clark/Bowron 260 as James Moray), where he was with Archibald Menzies. On 25 November they were given passports for Naples5 and on the 27th the Abb? Grant wrote that there were in Rome 'two gentlemen from Perthshire [one] the nephew to the Earl of Eglinton and son to Moray of Abercarny'.6 Together they sailed from Naples to Marseilles in April 1763.7 Moray, probably the same, paid Angelica Kauffman in Rome for a portrait of the Abb? Grant (SNPG) in 1763.8
1. Abercairny mss 389 (Mackenzie, 7 Nov. 1759). 2. Ibid. (20 Feb. 1760). 3. Abercairny mss 391 (E. of Lichfield, 21 Apr. 1761). 4. SP 105/313, f.496 (Mackenzie, 20 May 1761). 5. ASN cra 1258. 6. Seafield mss, gd 248/99/3. 7. SP 105/315, f.90 (Changuion, 12 Apr. 1763). 8. J. Fleming, Connoisseur, 136[1956]:82.