Studio RT Ltd

Description

This is a rather rare oil painting on canvas, as his work rarely comes to the market, by the Edinburgh artist John Watson McLea, who has signed the painting in the lower left hand corner and dated it 1850. The painting has been entitled 'Off to War' on the gallery label verso, this title may have been on the back of the canvas prior to the relining. The painting depicts a rural landscape, with a young woman seated on a grassy knoll, looking wistfully at the departing backs of a group of cavalry, in single file. The are wearing scarlet tunics and bearskins. She is wearing a bonnet and cloak and has a bundle tied up in a red napkin by her side.

John Watson McLea was born in Fortrose, Ross and Cromarty in 1813. However, due to the scarcity of early Scottish records, we have been unable to find out a great deal about of his life. He appears to have been married twice, in 1834 and again in 1852 to Agnes nee Panton b.1830, with whom he had two daughters, Agnes (1854) and Catherine (1858). There is one Census record for him from 1861, where he and his family were living at Campbells Close, Canongate, Edinburgh, Midlothian, where he said he was a landscape and portrait painter.

We have no record of his death, although he is recorded as being active from about 1832-1861. He is listed in The Dictionary of Scottish Painters, where they have him active 1840s-1860s and living in Leith, Edinburgh. They say that he painted landscapes and country scenes with figures in a style similar to Walter Geikie (1795-1837, who also lived in Edinburgh.

He has one painting in the National Collection, owned by Edinburgh City Council and his painting of Granton Regatta during the Regatta is in the collection of the Royal Forth Yacht Club. According to the gallery label on the back of the painting, he exhibited 44 paintings at the Royal Scottish Academy, but we are unable to confirm this.

The painting is framed in a more modern 2 5/8" gilt frame and it will be supplied wired and ready to hang.

Image size: 25 1/2" x 17 1/2" - 64.75cm x 44.5cm

Frame size: 31" x 23" - 78.75cm x 58.4cm

Medium: Oils on canvas

Condition: Very good. The canvas has been relined in the past and is now in very good clean ready to hang condition. The frame is also in very good condition.