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John Blake McDonald RSA - Original 19th Century Watercolour. Unsigned. Painting has some wormholes and a repaired tear at the top. Has been laid on card so damage is discreet.John Blake McDonald (1829-1901) was a Scottish artist and son of James McDonald, a wood merchant. He was born at Boharm, Morayshire, on 24 May 1829. He entered the academy of the Board of Trustees in Edinburgh in 1853. He proved a good student both then and later in the life school of the Royal Scottish Academy, where in 1862 he won the first prize for painting from the life. But retaining much of the chiaroscuro of the earlier school, and being, in spite of a certain dexterity and force of execution, heavy in handling and dull in colour, his pictures lacked the charm and fine quality which mark those of Lauder's best pupils. They were effective, however, and popular, for most of the more important dealt with dramatic or picturesque episodes in highland history or Jacobite romance, and in 1862 he was elected an associate of the Royal Scottish Academy and academician in 1877. In 1874 he was in Venice, where he painted a number of pictures, and after 1878 he practically abandoned figure for landscape. He died in Edinburgh on 20 December 1901, and was survived by his second wife and a grown-up family.For more information please click here.
