ALLAN, DAVID, a Scottish historical painter of considerable celebrity, was born at Alloa, on the 13th February 1744. At a very early age he showed such marks of genius as attracted the notice of some gentlemen living in the neighbourhood. In a remote part of the country, and deprived of the ordinary means of indulging his propensity to drawing, he betook himself, when a boy, to such implements and materials as he could readily procure; and the mechanical skill and taste which he displayed, particularly in the use of his knife, have been mentioned as remarkable for his years. Mr Stewart, then collector of the Customs at Alloa, having mentioned these proofs of natural talent to Mr Foulis the printer, who some time before had instituted an academy in Glasgow for painting and engraving, young Allan was invited to study under his care. Here he remained about seven years, studying the elementary principles of his art; and, by the proficiency which he attained, justified the opinion of his talents which had procured him admission to that ill-fated seminary. But although the public taste for the fine arts in Scotland was at that time so feeble as to leave his liberal and public-spirited preceptor without support, Allan, on leaving the academy, had the good fortune to gain the patronage of individuals whose generosity enabled him to prosecute his views, and to improve his taste, by studying the works of art abroad. He devoted himself with great zeal to his profession at Rome, where he remained sixteen years; during which time his subsistence chiefly depended on the copies which he made from the most celebrated pictures of the ancient masters. Among the original works which he then painted, was one which gained for him the gold medal given by the Academy of St Luke, in the year 1773, for the best specimen of historical composition. This picture represents the Origin of Painting, and is well known by the excellent engraving of it by Cunego. His design of the Calabrian Shepherds is also a composition of great merit; and his four views of the Carnivals at Rome, etched by Paul Sandby, are said likewise to have been very successful.
On his return to his native country, he took up his residence at Edinburgh; and soon after, on the death of Alexander Runciman, in 1786, was appointed director and master of the academy established by the Board of Trustees for Manufactures in Scotland. There he executed a great variety of works, of various degrees of merit; but perhaps none such as might have been expected from the author of the Origin of Painting. Those, indeed, by which he is most known, are of a cast altogether different, being remarkable for the comic humour which they display. The Scotch Wedding, the Highland Dance, the Repentance Stool, with his Illustrations of the Gentle Shepherd, are all of this class, and so generally known, from his own spirited etchings in aqua-tinta, as to need no description.
Mr Allan was long remembered and spoken of as an excellent private character. He died at Edinburgh on the 6th August 1796, in the 53d year of his age.