Studio: international art (23.1901)

R. IV. Allan

In spite of his readiness to join in any frolic,
Mr. Allan kept the purpose of his residence
in Paris ever before him, and from the big room
in the Boulevard d'Enfer, he sent many strong
studies and plein air landscapes to the English
and Scotch Exhibitions. Of these were specially
remarkable a series of water-colour drawings, his
first productions in the medium with wThich he is
now so thoroughly familiar. Scotland, ever a true
Alma Mater to her gifted sons, was not slow
to recognize Robert Allan's genius, and, whilst
most of his contemporaries were still mere
students, he was elected a member of the newly-
founded Scottish Society of Painters in Water-
Colours. In 1881, even the artist himself felt that
he had nothing more to gain by further study in
Paris, and, after a short visit home, he decided to
settle in London, which is to the Scotch what
Paris is to the Americans. Mr. Allan took a
studio in Hampstead, and from that time his
success may be said to have been finally secured,
for since then his work has steadily increased
in popularity. The picture which made his mark
outside his immediate art-circle was perhaps the
Funeral of Carfyle, exhibited first at the Royal
Society in Glasgow and later at the Royal Academy
in London.

Owing to a fortunate conjunction of circum-
stances, Robert Allan was the only artist who
witnessed the interment of the great writer. As is
well known, neither the day nor the place of the
funeral had been made known to the public, and
on the dreary February day when the melancholy
procession left the Ecclefechan Station, on the way
to the churchyard, there were but few spectators.
Mr. Allan, however, as he told me, had felt very
sure that it would be near his own people that
Carlyle would have elected to rest, and he deter-
mined to take his chance of finding his guess
correct. He arrived at Ecclefechan in time to
witness the whole sad ceremony, and though his
picture was painted before Mr. Froude's well-
known description was written, a comparison
between the two cannot fail to emphasise the
accuracy of both. " He " (Carlyle), says Froude,
" was taken down in the night. I, Lecky, and
Tyndall, alone of his London friends, were able to
follow. . . . We arrived at Ecclefechan on a cold,
dreary, February morning, such a morning as he
himself describes when he laid his mother in the
same grave where he was now to rest. Snow had
fallen, and road and field were wrapped in a white
winding sheet. A few strangers had arrived from
Edinburgh and elsewhere, but not many, for the

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