Background
Daniel Macnee was born on June 4, 1806, at Fintry, Stirling.
Daniel Macnee was born on June 4, 1806, at Fintry, Stirling.
Macnee attended school in the Limmerfield first became acquainted with his life-long friend W. L. Leitch. He began to lean drawing when about the age of twelve, at the class of John Knox in Dunlop Street, along with Leitch, Horatio McCulloch, and Templeton, but lost himself in consequence of giving way to unsettled habits.
He remained with Knox about four years, after which he was employed by Dr. James Brown to make some large anatomical drawings for the illustration of popular lectures. He and Leitch were at filis time fond of fileatricals, and got up a little theatrical club, hiring a kind of cellar for their dramatic performances in the Saltmarket, and for which the pair of them painted the scenery. The then fashionable demand for painted snuff-boxes of Ayrshire manufacture tempted Macnee into the employment of a Mr. Crighton at Cumnock, where he only remained a month; Lizars the engraver, of Edinburgh, having in the meantime seen some of the anatomical drawings, offering him by letter a situation to draw and colour similar illustrations for his books – an offer which was eagerly accepted.
He commenced to work with Lizars in Edinburgh when about the age of nineteen, studying at the Trustees' Academy in the evenings, where he added to the number of his friends the great David Scott, Thomas Duncan, and Robert Scott Lauder. He
began to exhibit chalk-portraits in Edinburgh in 1826, and on his return to Glasgow four years afierwards, along with these began to paint portraits, fancy heads, and subjects of homely peasant life.
It was about this time that in company with Horatio McCulloch he made his first trip to London, the expenses of both being defrayed by Bailie Lumsden of Glasgow. They went by coach, and the incidents of the journey afforded a fund of stories to Macnee for long afterwards. Neither of the two seem to have been very highly impressed by what they saw at the Academy's exhibition, as after their return Macnee said the portraits there were of no account.
He lived at this time in Cochrane Street, and thenceforward followed uninterruptedly the profession of a portrait-painter, contributing regularly to the Glasgow as well as to the Edinburgh exhibitions. His success in catching a good likeness, united with a pleasant bonhomie fund of anecdote racily told, with all the other qualifiutions of a rare jolly good fellow, rapidly brought him into notice, and he moved westwards to the more fashionable Regent Street, soon becoming one of the most prominent Glasgow citizens. The death of John Graham-Gilbert in 1877, with whom he had hitherto divided the practice in the west of Scotland, added largely to his employment, when he removed still farther westwards to a house which he bought in Bath Street. On his election as president of the Royal Scottish Academy (which he joined in 1830), he removed to Edinburgh in 1876, receiving the honour of knighthood in the following year. In 1877 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He painted rapidly and freely, often finishing a head-size in three sittings of an hour or an hour and a halfeach, and his numerous portraits are to be met with almost everywhere in Scotland. Besides regularly contributing to the Glasgow and Edinburgh exhibitions, he was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy in London. Among his portraits maybe mentioned those of Robert Macnish, the author of Anatomy of Drunkenness, 1837; McСulloch, the political economist, 1841; the late Duke of Hamilton, Lord Brougham, Viscount Melville, the late Lord Belhaven, the Duke of Bucdeuch, the Earl of Haddington, Admiral Sir William Edmonstone, and a great many portraits of ladies, in which he was particularly successful.
Although not possessed of much invention, he occasionally painted subject-pictures, mostly confined to one or two figures, such as the Ballad, scenes from the "Gentle Shepherd. " He died on January 17, 1882, after a short illness, and was followed to the grave by an unusual number of friends.
William Maclure was a celebrated portrait painter, who served as president of the Royal Scottish Academy.
Among the other honours conferred on him was that of LL. D. from the University of Glasgow, besides being a deputy-lieutenant of the city of Edinburgh.
In 1877 Macnee received the honour of knighthood.
One of his best works was a portrait of Dr. Wardlaw, for which he was awarded a gold medal at the Paris International Exhibition in 1855.
In 1829 William Macnee was admitted as a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1877 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Sir Daniel Macnee was tall with a fine, massive presence and a gift for brilliant conversation.
Daniel Macnee married twice. All but two of the issue of the first marriage, to Margaret McGill, a son Daniel and daughter Isabella pre-deceased him. His second marriage to Mary Buchanan took place on November 17, 1859, they had three children together.
