Born Woodside, Aberdeen, 4 Jan; died Aberdeen 6 Oct. Painter of Scottish and continental landscapes, sporting subjects and portraits. Son of a textile designer. At the age of 13 was painting miniature human and animal figures on snuff boxes. In 1820 he was teaching public drawing classes in Aberdeen. His first known sketch from nature, ‘St Machar’s Cathedral’, dates from this time and was later lithographed and published. He combined teaching with a study of anatomy spending the summers sketching in the central and western highlands. In 1823, having married Clementina Farquharson, he received his first regular training in art, initially in London and then, in 1824, in Paris, where he studied under Regnault. He then travelled to Marseilles and on to Italy, visiting Genoa, Florence, Sienna and Rome. In 1825 was in Naples and Salerno before returning home via the Italian lakes, Switzerland and the Rhine. During the tour he completed over 1,000 watercolour sketches as well as 40 copies of famous works. A selection of these was shown at the Ashmolean Museum in 1970. These early works express an original talent that was never quite recaptured.