Sir William Allan

With the recognition that their photographs could in themselves be finished works of art, Hill and Adamson (David Octavius Hill [1802-70] and Robert Adamson [1821-48]) began to photograph subjects other than ministers. Portraits of eminent sitters from Edinburgh society were undertaken concurrently with the images pertaining to Hill's painting scheme, the Disruption Picture.

One of the most notable portraits from this time is that of the artist Sir William Allan (1782-1850). Elected president of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1838, eight years after Hill became its secretary, Allan, like his friend Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841), painted scenes from Scottish history and of the formation of the Church of Scotland. He was also known for his large canvases of foreign places and for being a keen collector of Circassian objects, particularly costumes and armor. In this photograph he is seen standing with a shield and a sword, presumably examples from his own collection. The forms of the wooden chair and the blade are gently echoed in Allan's stance—his left arm extends out to the back of the chair, echoing the armrest, while his right arm recalls the diagonal placement of the sword. The photograph was so successful that it was the source for an engraving in the book Scottish Art and National Encouragement, published in 1846.

Adapted from Anne M. Lyden. Hill and Adamson, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1999), 20. ©1999, J. Paul Getty Museum.