Kenneth MacLeay RSA
Kenneth MacLeay 1802 ~ 1878. Looks as if he forgot to take his 'happy pill' for this photo.
Kenneth McLeay was born in Oban, Scotland, in 1802. He studied at the trustees' Academy in Edinburgh He was a Foundation Associate Member of the Scottish Academy - and became RSA from 1839
He was a chiefly a watercolour portrait painter, producing both miniature and full size portraits. He is recorded as a portrait painter in the Edinburgh trade directories from 1822 until 1878, living at twelve different addresses over this period.
He also produce a series of watercolours of the Highland Clans for the Royal Family, published in 1870.
Kenneth
MacLeay exhibited photographs in many of the PSS Exhibitions from 1856
to 1864.
He
became a professional photographer from 1859 to 1863.
All the full length figures incorporated are taken from the Highlands of Scotland by Kenneth McLeay, a renowned Victorian miniaturist responsible for two .
It's ironic that with all the beautiful portraits MacLeay painted, the only illustrations of him are these two photographs.
magnificently illustrated volumes entitled the Highlands of Scotland published by Royal Command in 1870, the original water colours now being owned by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and held in Windsor Castle.
Once you've admired MacLeay's wonderful artistry, read the fascinating details of all the sitters that help to bring the portraits 'alive. Discover who:
Was the Queen's piper but ran a bagpipe business in London and had special permission to live outside Buckingham Palace?
Found the Browns very insolent and impudent towards everybody?
Was coachman of the Aberfeldy and Callander coach, and had only been able to give MacLeay short sittings on alternate days, which had caused 'a good deal of delay'?
Who died in September 1885 after an accident in which he became caught up in a wire fence near the road between the Garbh Allt and Invercauld and was found by his sister after lying out in the open for nineteen hours?
Emigrated to Australia in 1855?
Was supposed to have been robbed and murdered in Glasgow in 1868, and his body found four months later in the Clyde?
Is said to have dictated to MacLeay, just how John Brown was to be painted?
These 31 paintings of McLeay's are without doubt the most detailed portraits of the period showing in astonishing detail, the individuals, their Highland dress and - most importantly - the tartans they wore. Victorian lithography has never been surpassed and the prints in the books look as if they were McLeay's originals.
