Allan

Allan, Sir William, a Scottish artist, who flourished in the early half of the present century. Originally apprenticed to a coach painter, he entered the Trustees' Academy, where Wilkie was his fellow student. He afterwards worked at the Royal Academy, and exhibited in 1803. Not finding the appreciation he expected he went to St. Petersburg, where he met with ample employment as a portrait painter. In his leisure he visited Tartary, Turkey, and the Black Sea, returning home in 1814. He then painted Knox admonishing Mary Queen of Scots, and The Parting of Charles Stuart and Flora Macdonald, besides many other pictures, but without attracting favourable notice till Sir Walter Scott took him up, and in 1825 The Murder of the Regent Murray won him the Associateship of the Academy, of which in 1835 he received the membership. In 1838 he was chosen president of the Scottish Academy, and in 1842 he was knighted, and appointed H.M. Limner for Scotland. He died in 1850.