d was a fear on the part of the
promoters that by the Act of Union the manufactures and arts of Scotland
would be transferred to England, and thus be prejudiced to a very
considerable extent. Sir William Allan was an artist of great power and
varied experience. Mr. Thomas Duncan, who afterwards became an Associate
of the Royal Academy, and produced a number of high-class pictures, with
which all lovers of art are familiar, was one of Sir W. Allan's pupils,
contemporaneously with Mr. Macnee, and from this coincidence, a
friendship, which was life-long and intimate, sprang up between them,
but it was unhappily severed by the early death of Duncan. Sir David
Wilkie, Sir William Allan, Sir John Watson Gordon, Burnet, the engraver
and painter, Lizars, the Lauders, the Faeds, and other painters of note,
were students in the Trustees' Academy. It may be remarked in passing,
that this Board is still in existence, but instead of being controlled,
as originally intended, by a certain number of trustees, it is under the
management of the Department of Science and Arts at South Kensington.
Mr. Macnee's studies at this time were various, but they principally
took the shape of drawings from the antique statues. When he first went
to Edinburgh, Mr. Macnee became connected with Mr. Lizars, the eminent
engraver, by whom he was employed in executing anatomical drawings,
colouring engravings, and other cognate works, which greatly tended to
amplify his experience, and through Mr. Lizars he obtained numerous
commissions from lithographers in Edinburgh, which brought him in
emoluments of considerable value. Having completed his studies under Sir
W. Allan, Mr. Macnee set up in Edinburgh as a professional artist on
his own account, and for several years he continued to paint portraits
and finished sketches from ordinary life. He returned to Glasgow in the
year 1832, since which he has resided, except at rare intervals, in the
Metropolis of the West. For a number of years subsequent to his taking
up his residence here, he was largely employed in executing crayon
portraits, and he was a large exhibitor at most of the Art Exhibitions
in Edinburgh, London, Glasgow, and elsewhere. Indeed, it is perhaps not
too much to say that Mr. Macnee has exhibited more pictures in the Royal
Scottish Academy than any other living artist.

The first pictures exhibited by Mr. Macnee in the Royal Academy of
London were portraits of Sir Charles, afterwards Lord Hard