Studies Of Head And Hands Of A Circassian As Though Gripping A Sword by Sir William Allan

Heads and Hands - Study for The Battle of Prestonpans

Artist Sir William Allan (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1782 - 1850)

Datec.1842

Mediumred, black and white chalk on paper

ClassificationsPaintings And Drawings

DimensionsOverall: Height: 20.7 cm, Width: 17 cm
Frame: Height: 55.6 cm, Width: 40.5 cm

AcquisitionPurchased in 1960.

CopyrightOut of copyright - CC0

LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub

Object numberABDAG003369

Keywords

About MeThis chalk drawing is a preparatory study for the oil painting "The Battle of Prestonpans, in which the English Forces, commanded by Sir John Cope, were beaten by the Highlanders under Prince Charles Edward Stuart, on the 21st September 1745" (1842). During a period of unprecedented change and political uncertainty, Allan joined forces with Sir Walter Scott and others to promote a Scottish identity that maintained its difference to England as well as its place in the union as a self-determined, modern nation. This would explain why "Prestonpans" at the same time celebrates a Jacobite victory whilst paying tribute to the gallantry of Gardiner, the English colonel who falls from his horse having received a deathblow from Samuel Cameron's Lochaber axe.

Allan makes studies of several characters from the middle-ground of the painting: a fallen English infantryman on the right, his arm raised in self-defence; the hand and sword of another fallen soldier in the centre; and the forbidding faces of three approaching Jacobites on the left. We can see from the detail of these sketches that Allan took no shortcuts in the creation of dramatic tension: every white-knuckled grasp of a sword and grimacing face of a soldier is attentively scrutinised in close-up before being worked into the wider composition.
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Preparatory study for the September, 1745 "Battle of Prestonpans", a tussle won by the Highlanders under Bonnie Prince Charles