ALLAN, Sir William, R.A., and President of the Scottish Royal Academy for the Fine Arts, raised himself from obscurity, by the force of native genius and indefatigable perseverance, to a high rank among the painters of his age and country. A detail of the steps by which this eminent artist and excellent man overcame the difficulties of his
first position, however valuable as an example to the young aspirant for distinction, would be here misplaced. We shall content ourselves with an outline of his professional career.
William Allan was born at Edinburgh, in 1782, of humble but respectable parents, who afforded him the elements of a classical education in the High School of his native city. He early showed a strong attachment to drawing; and it was intended that he should become an ornamental coach-painter. With this view he was entered as a pupil in the School of Design established by the Board of Trustees for Arts and Manufactures, then under the direction of Mr Graham as master. This able teacher had the good fortune to have among his first pupils Allan and Wilkie. The two youthful artists were placed at the same table, and for months studied the same designs. During this time they contracted a friendship which terminated only with their lives. In the Edinburgh school Allan remained for several years, and exhibited such proficiency that he aspired to the higher branches of painting. He subsequently was for some time a student in the Royal Academy of London; and afterwards attempted to practise his art in the vast field of the metropolis. But not meeting with the encouragement he had hoped to find, young Allan, with that decision which was one of his characteristics, speedily determined, with very scanty resources, to seek his fortunes abroad. Some circumstances made him think of Russia as a probable field; and having procured a few introductions, especially one to Sir Alexander Crichton, then the imperial family physician, our artist, in 1804, embarked for Riga; but was carried by a succession of storms to Memel in Prussia, where the state of his finances compelled him to remain for some time, supporting himself, as he best could, by the exercise of his pencil. At last he was enabled to set out for St Petersburg by land; and on his way he encountered the Russian army, then on its route for the campaign that terminated in the bloody field of Austerlitz. He soon arrived in the Russian capital, where the kindness of Crichton, and his other introductions, procured him abundant employment. Allan remained long in Petersburg, where the emoluments of his profession enabled him to indulge his eager desire to travel for improvement in his art; and for several years he made occasional excursions into Southern Russia, Turkey, the Crimea, and Circassia, where he stored his mind, and filled his portfolio, with those vivid sketches of Cossacks, Tartars, Turks, Circassians, and other orientals, of which he made such admirable use in his subsequent pictures.
After a ten years' residence abroad, Mr Allan, in 1814, took up his abode in his native place; where his talents, his unassuming manners, and his interesting conversation, won him the esteem and friendship of Walter Scott, and the other literary ornaments of the northern capital. At this time he produced his masterly picture, The Circassian Captives, which, after delighting the eyes of his fellow citizens, was exhibited at London in 1815. This beautiful composition, which united graceful forms and powerful expression with novel and picturesque costumes, established Allan's reputation as a master in the highest walk of art. But liberal collectors were then comparatively rare amongst us; and the picture remained in the studio of the artist, until some of his admiring friends resolved to subscribe what would be a remunerating price, and thus decide by lot who should obtain the picture. The fortunate possessor is the Earl of Wemyss, of whose collection it is a chief ornament. About the same time, the Grand Duke Nicolas, now emperor of Russia, visited Edinburgh, and purchased two of Allan's capital pictures, Siberian Exiles, and the Circassian prince Haslan Gheray crossing the River Kuban with his followers. This imperial patronage gave a very
Allan favourable turn to the fortunes of the painter, whose pictures were now sought for by collectors.
Mr Allan, however, had the misfortune to suffer from ophthalmia, which threatened him with total blindness. Obligated to suspend his loved profession, he was advised to spend the winter in the milder air of Italy. He went to Rome during that season, and to Naples in the hot weather, from whence he passed to Constantinople. With renovated health, he returned home by the classic shores of Asia Minor and Greece, and with rich stores of materials for future compositions, as appeared in his fine picture of the Constantinopolitan Slave-Market, and other productions of his pencil. For several years he uninterruptedly pursued his profession in Edinburgh; but in 1834, the care of his health, and his desire of further improvement in his art, induced him to visit the south of Spain; and he made a short excursion to the opposite coast of Morocco. In 1841 he went again to Petersburg; when he was employed by his imperial patron to paint Peter the Great as a Naval Architect, a fine composition, which is now in the winter palace of the emperor, after having been exhibited in London in 1845. The author of this memoir met him in Holland in 1847, on his return from a professional tour in Germany and Belgium; making, as was his custom, his relaxation from the pencil subservient to his love of his art.
Mr Allan had been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of London in 1826, and an Academician in 1835. Honours now flowed in upon him. On the death of his early friend Sir David Wilkie, he was appointed Limner to Her Majesty for Scotland. On the decease of the president of the Scottish Academy in 1838, Allan was elected to that office, which he held till his death; in 1842 he received the honour of knighthood; and in 1849, he was appointed one of the commissioners of the Board of Arts and Manufactures; but the declining state of his health, which was but too obvious to his friends, induced him to decline the honourable office, to the sincere regret of the members of that Board.
Sir William Allan was now confined to the house by a chronic bronchitis. But his professional energy and love for his art remained unabated; and, till increasing debility interrupted his labours, he was assiduously engaged on a grand picture—the subject being Bruce at Bannockburn—which, though far advanced, remains unfinished. It exhibits no trace of impaired powers; and it is as conspicuous as his two fine pictures of the Battle of Waterloo, for the spirit of the composition, and the skill with which the artist has contrived to vary the formality of armies drawn up in battle array, by interesting episodes, all conducive to the main story.
Sir William Allan died on Friday, 22d of February 1850, unmarried, in the 68th year of his age, deeply regretted by numerous friends, and by the public, who justly considered him as an ornament to the country that gave him birth. The following is a chronological list of the principal works of this eminent artist:—
1. Circassian Captives. 2. Tartar Bandits. 3. Haslan Gheray crossing the Kuban. 4. Polish-Jewish Wedding. 5. Siberian Exiles with their Cossack Guards. 6. Slave-Market at Constantinople. 7. Lord Byron after crossing the Hellespont at Abydos. 8. Assassination of David Rizzio; by many considered his masterpiece. 9. Moorish Love-Letter. 10. Battle of Prestonpans. 11. Incident in the campaign of Robert Bruce in Ireland. 12. Peter the Great teaching Shipbuilding to his Subjects. 13. Polish Exiles on their route to Siberia. 14. Naval Battle. 15. Battle of Waterloo from the French position; purchased by the Duke of Wellington. 16. Napoleon and the English Sailors at Boulogne. 17. Battle of Waterloo from the English position. This picture was painted for the competition of artists in Westminster Hall in 1846; but though
highly prized by the best judges, was not successful. 19. Several fine landscapes of Scottish scenery. 20. Battle of Bannockburn, left unfinished. (T. S. T.)