Portraying something of the personality and character of the sitter is just one of the challenges facing the portrait artist. Jean Muir is described as being ‘calm in a psychedelic storm’, a symbol of understated elegance in British fashion. And that seems pretty well captured here in ceramic, echoing the vibrancy and the economy that Muir brought to cutting and draping cloth. Complexity and simplicity, carefully composed as one.

I’ve paraphrased this from the excellent label that sits next to this artwork in Portrait, part of National Galleries Scotland, where Muir’s face peers out of the vitrine on the way to the ground floor loos.