This is probably an early compositional study for a of Lord Provost Bain which Daniel Macnee painted for the City of Glasgow in 1878. It shares similarities with a pen and ink sketch of Bain in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (PG 1687). Following the death of the painter Graham Gilbert in 1866, Macnee enjoyed a virtual monopoly of major portrait commissions in the West of Scotland.
Sir Daniel Macnee (Scottish, 1806 - 1882)
Sir Daniel Macnee was a leading Scottish portrait painter. Born at Fintry, he was brought up in Glasgow where he became a pupil of portraitist and landscapist John Knox. There, he met fellow artists Horatio McCulloch and William Leitch. Macnee and McCulloch briefly worked as snuff-boxes painters at Cumnock, before moving to Edinburgh and into the employment of the engraver W.H. Lizars. Meanwhile Macnee continued his studies at the Trustees? Academy and in 1829 was admitted to the Royal Scottish Academy. He returned to Glasgow, where he established a flourishing portrait studio. His sitters included wealthy merchants, pioneering industrialists, aristocrats and even Queen Victoria. In 1876 he returned to Edinburgh, was elected President of the Royal Scottish Academy and was knighted.
