ALLAN, David, a Scottish historical painter of considerable celebrity, was born at Alloa on the 13th February 1744. At a very early age he gave such proofs of natural artistic talent as led to his being placed under the care of the Messrs Foulis, who some time before had instituted an academy in Glasgow for painting and engraving. On leaving the academy (1762), after seven years’ successful study, he obtained the patronage of Lord Cathcart and of Erskine of Mar, on whose estate he had been born. The latter furnished him with the means of proceeding to Rome (1764), where he remained for a number of years engaged principally in copying the old masters. Among the original works which he then painted was the “Origin of Portraiture ”—representing a Corinthian maid drawing her lover’s shadow—well known through Cunego’s excellent engraving. This gained for him the gold medal given by the Academy of St Luke in the year 1773 for the best specimen of historical composition. Returning from Rome in 1777, he resided for a time in London, and occupied himself in portrait-painting. In 1780 he removed to Edinburgh, where, on the death of Alexander Runciman in 1786, he was appointed director and master of the Academy of Arts. There he painted and etched in aquatint a variety of works, those by which he is best known—as the Scotch Wedding, the Highland Dance, the Repentance Stool, and his Illustrations of the Gentle Shepherd —being remarkable for their comic humour. He has had frequently applied to him the name of the “Scottish Hogarth;” but his drolleries are not to be compared for a moment with the productions of the great English satirist. Allan died at Edinburgh on the 6th August 1796....
ALLAN, SirWilliam, R.A., and president of the Royal Scottish Academy, was born at Edinburgh in 1782. At an early age he was entered as a pupil in the School of Design established in Edinburgh by the Board of Trustees for Arts and Manufactures, where he had as companions, Wilkie, Burnet the engraver, and others who afterwards distinguished themselves as artists. Here Allan and Wilkie were placed at the same table, studied the same designs, and contracted a friendship which terminated only with their lives. Leaving the Edinburgh school, Allan prosecuted his studies for some time in London; but his attempt to establish himself there was unsuccessful, and after exhibiting at the Royal Academy (1805) his first picture, A Gipsy Boy and Ass, an imitation in style of Opie, he determined, in spite of his scanty resources, to seek his fortune abroad. He accordingly set out the same year for Russia, but was carried by stress of weather to Memel, where he remained for some time, supporting himself by his pencil. At last, however, he reached St Petersburg, where the kindness of Sir Alexander Crichton, the court physician, and other friends procured him abundant employment. The emoluments of his profession enabled him by and by to make excursions into southern Russia, Turkey, the Crimea, and Circassia, where he filled his portfolio with vivid sketches, of which he made admirable use in his subsequent pictures. In 1814 he returned to Edinburgh, and in the two following years exhibited at the Royal Academy The Circassian Captives and Bashkirs conducting Convicts to Siberia. The former composition, which united graceful forms and powerful expression with novel and picturesque costumes, established his reputation as a master in the highest walk of art; but the picture remained so long unsold in the studio of the artist, that, thoroughly disheartened, he threatened to retire to Circassia when, through the kindness of Sir Walter Scott, a subscription of 1000 guineas was obtained for the picture, which fell by lot into the possession of the Earl of Wemyss. About the same time the Grand Duke Nicholas, afterwards emperor of Russia, visited Edinburgh, and purchased his Siberian Exiles and Haslan Gheray crossing the River Kuban, giving a very favourable turn to the fortunes of the painter, whose pictures were now sought for by collectors. From this time to 1834 we find him pursuing his art in the sphere in which he achieved his greatest success and firmly established his fame, the illustration of Scottish history. His most important works of this class were Archbishop Sharpe on Magus Moor; John Knox admonishing Mary Queen of Scots (1823), engraved by Burnet; Mary Queen of Scots signing her Abdication (1824); and Regent Murray shot by Hamilton of Bothwell-haugh. The last procured his election as an associate of the Royal Academy (1825). Later Scottish subjects were Lord Byron (1831), portraits of Scott, and The Orphan (1834), which represented Anne Scott seated near the chair of her deceased father. In 1830 he was compelled, on account of an attack of ophthalmia, to seek a milder climate, and visited Rome, Naples, and Constantinople. He returned with a rich store of materials, of which he made excellent use in his Constantinople Slave Market and other productions. In 1834 he visited Spain and Morocco, and in 1841 went again to St Petersburg, when he undertook, at the request of the Czar, his Peter the Great teaching his Subjects the Art of Shipbuilding, exhibited in London in 1845, and now in the Winter Palace of St Petersburg. His Polish Exiles and Moorish Love-letter, &c., had secured his election as a Royal Academician in 1835; he was appointed president of the Royal Scottish Academy (1838), and limner to Her Majesty for Scotland, after Wilkie’s death (1841); and in 1842 received the honour of knighthood. His later years were occupied with battle-pieces, the last he finished being the second of his two companion pictures of the Battle of Waterloo. He died on the 22d February 1850, leaving a large picture unfinished— Bruce at Bannockburn— which exhibits no traces of impaired power.
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