The Glasgow Chronicle. — 1850-02-27 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

DEATH OF SIR WILLIAM ALLAN, R.A. P.R.S.A.  We bad lately to record the death of Francis Jeffrey, and we must now perform the like melancholy office for another eminent citizen, who, although moving in a more retired sphere, and less conspicuous in the eyes of the world, still added to the fame of our city while he lived, and has left many enduring memorials of his genius, now that he is no more. Sir William died here at his residence, Great King Street, on Saturday forenoon, in his sixty-eight year. He had for a considerable time been suffering from bronchiti, and had latterly become much enfeebled, ere his sufferings terminated. As a historical painter, Sir William Allan has long been known wherever the arts are cultivated. He was of humble parentage, but in early life evinced a decided predilection for art. So modest was his disposition, and so diffident was he of his own powers, that we believe he first embarked in the humble calling of painting devices on carriages. In this limited walk he displayed the earnest of those powers that encouraged him to devote bimself to painting. His subsequent career is well known to all conversant with the fine arts. Had he preferred an honourable competency to the higher ambition of the artist, we dare say he might have become one of the first portrait painters of the day. But very different were the views of William Allan. As soon as he could accomplish his aim, we find him not merely seeking the continental galleries, but, with an enterprise that few artists of his time have equalled, penetrating into the remote and semi-barbarous territories of Russia and Turkey, that he might study the rude and picturesque aspects there presented, and find invaluable materials for his pencil. We may safely say, that few or no living artists have pursued such a course of arduous and romantic adventure as Sir William Allan ; and sustained by the enthusiastic love of his art We heard him once say, that on one occasion he deemed it a great luxury that the lot had fallen to him to sleep on an iron gate laid horizontally in preference to the ground, by way of a slender refuge from the vermin. Even in later life he still continued his peregrinations, undergoing many hardships. He visited Morocco, Greece, Spun, and the wide range of county from Gibraltar to Persia, and from Persia to the Baltic, studying the scenery and the manners of the various nations, which he afterwards rendered so faithfully in his works, which are now to be found adorning the best galleries of the kingdom. We cannot enumerate his pictures, or in fact do any adequate justice to a man of his well-deserved fame in this necessarily extremely, hasty and imperfect notice, but we trust that task will be soon fulfilled in a befitting manner. There are few who are not familiar with his exquisite sketches of Oriental scenery and manners, the last being that now in our Exhibition, the Discovery of the Cup in the Sack of Benjamin. Among his more famous works collected through his travels we may enumerate—" The Polish 04ptives"—" The Slave Market of Constantinople" —"Tartar Banditti Dividing their Spoil"—" The Moorish Love Letter," and various other kindred subjects. But Sir William Allan also did much to illustrate the historical lore of his own land from the time of Mary and Rizzio, and the murder of Archbishop Sharpe, both which subjects he successfully treated, down to the battle of Waterloo, his vivid representation of which was secured by the hero of that day, who personally complimented Sir William Allan on the truth and vigour of his design. Sir William Allan was an old and attached friend of Sir Walter Scott, who fondly termed him "Will Allan," and their intimacy only closed with the last momenta of Sir Walter, if we mistake not, Sir William Allan having been at Abbotsford during that trying scene. He was a singularly unassuming man, amiable in his ways, and much estmmed by his brother artists and a wide circle, including the most eminent in t'se land. He attained the rank of Royal Academician, and on the death of the venerable Watson, was elected President of the Royal Scottish Academy with the universal acclaim of all the members This distinguished office he held until his death, and we do not say too much when we hint that it will be no easy task to select a successor equally qualified to maintain the reputation of the Academy.—Caledonian Mercury.