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Lot Essay
Maclean is an interesting artist who was considered worthy of an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, despite the fact that he was only thirty-seven when he died. The son of a Glasgow manufacturer, he was educated at Hellensburgh and Edinburgh. He then entered business in Glasgow, only to abandon it in 1861 to become an artist. After studying in Rome, Florence and Antwerp, he began to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1872, where he showed a total of seven works before his death, which occurred at St. Leonards-on-Sea on 30 October 1877. The Art Journal printed a short obituary, lamenting the loss of an artist 'whose works gave abundant promise of great future excellence'.
Covent Garden Market, 1873 appeared at the RA in 1874, and, according to both the Art Journal and the DNB, attracted considerable attention. The subject is clearly idealised, being seen in terms of a frieze-like composition with figures in elegant, statuesque poses which betray the artist's study of antique and Renaissance sources in Italy. This was widely recognised at the time. 'Mr Maclean', observed the art critic of the Times, 'has daringly invested the ill-clad forms and rugged faces of the basket women of the arcade and the piazzas and the portico of St Paul's with Italian grace and beauty not unworthy of a design for the wise and foolish Virgins'. F.G. Stephens, writing in the Athenaeum, thought it 'an ambitious and, on the whole, highly creditable picture ... The figures ... are good, well designed, carefully drawn, and fairly studied'. But he wondered if the artist had not gone too far and given the figures an 'unnatural elegance' in his determination to endow the 'homely' scene with 'the beauty of an Italian and medieval design'.
Not surprisingly for such a short-lived artist, Maclean's work is rare. Only three other examples appear in his Witt Library file, if indeed they are all by him. A later artist of the same name (1867-1940) is sometimes confused with ours.
Covent Garden Market, 1873 appeared at the RA in 1874, and, according to both the Art Journal and the DNB, attracted considerable attention. The subject is clearly idealised, being seen in terms of a frieze-like composition with figures in elegant, statuesque poses which betray the artist's study of antique and Renaissance sources in Italy. This was widely recognised at the time. 'Mr Maclean', observed the art critic of the Times, 'has daringly invested the ill-clad forms and rugged faces of the basket women of the arcade and the piazzas and the portico of St Paul's with Italian grace and beauty not unworthy of a design for the wise and foolish Virgins'. F.G. Stephens, writing in the Athenaeum, thought it 'an ambitious and, on the whole, highly creditable picture ... The figures ... are good, well designed, carefully drawn, and fairly studied'. But he wondered if the artist had not gone too far and given the figures an 'unnatural elegance' in his determination to endow the 'homely' scene with 'the beauty of an Italian and medieval design'.
Not surprisingly for such a short-lived artist, Maclean's work is rare. Only three other examples appear in his Witt Library file, if indeed they are all by him. A later artist of the same name (1867-1940) is sometimes confused with ours.