RUNCIMANAlexander (1736-1785), historical painter, was born in Edinburgh in 1736. He studied at the Foulis’s Academy, Glasgow, and at the age of thirty proceeded to Rome where he spent five years. It was at this time that he became acquainted with Fuseli, a kindred spirit, between whose productions and those of Runciman there is a marked similarity. The painter’s earliest efforts had been in landscape; “other artists,” it was said of him, “talked meat and drink, but he talked landscape.” He soon, however, turned to historical and imaginative subjects, exhibiting his Nausicaa at Play with her Maidens in 1767 at the Free Society of British Artists,! Edinburgh. On his return from Italy, after a brief residence in London, where in 1772 he exhibited in the Royal Academy, he settled in Edinburgh, and was appointed master of the Trustees’ Academy. He was patronized by Sir James Clerk, whose hall at Penicuik House he decorated with a series of subjects from Ossian. He also executed various religious paintings and an altarpiece in the Cowgate Episcopal Church, Edinburgh, and easel pictures ' of Cymon and Iphigenia, Sigismunda Weeping over the Heart of Tancred, and Agrippina Landing with the Ashes 1 of Germanicus. He died in Edinburgh on October 4, I 1785. His works, while they show high intention and considerable imagination, are frequently defective in form ' and extravagant in gesture.

RUNCIMANJohn (1744-1766), historical painter, a younger brother of the above, accompanied him to Rome, and died at Naples in 1766. He was an artist of great promise. His Flight into Egypt, in the National Gallery of Scotland, is remarkable for the precision of its execution and the mellow richness of its colouring.