Volume 3 > Half-Volume 6

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strikingly handsome in person, although rather slim
than r�bust, with a countenance beaming with intel-
ligence, and an eye full of animation and fire. His
career furnishes a remarkable example of the success
which, sooner or later, is the reward of perseverance.
It is true he did not attain riches, but upon the pos-
session of these his happiness was not placed. He
wished, to use his own words, "to raise some beacon
to show that such a man had lived," and few have
so completely achieved the object of their ambition.
Wilson's father survived him three years.
Three supplementary volumes of the Ornithology,
containing delineations of American birds not de-
scribed by Wilson, have been published by Charles
Lucien Bonaparte. In 1832 an edition of the Ameri-
can Ornithology, with illustrative notes and a life of
Wilson, by Sir William Jardine, was published in
London, in three volumes.
WILSON, ANDREW, one of the most eminent
landscape-painters of the Scottish school, was born
in Edinburgh on the 19th March, 1778. He was
the son of Mr. Archibald Wilson, a burgess of that
city, who, descended on his mother's side from an
old Jacobite family, the Shields of Inveresk, was
through her the heir to their possessions; these were,
however, for the most part dissipated before he suc-
ceeded, and consequently he was obliged to look to
business for a livelihood. He selected house-paint-
ing, but being without training for such a pursuit,
and educated for another position, he was not a
fortunate practitioner of this humble branch of art.
His calling, however, as it frequently has done,
may have given a bent to the inclinations of his son
Andrew, who desired to be an artist, and was in
consequence apprenticed to Alexander Nasmyth,
the distinguished portrait and landscape painter.
Although little is known of this apprenticeship, there
is evidence in Wilson's pictures of the influence
of his first master, and of the thorough training
which he received. Even his early works exhibit a
certain mastery over materials and a perfection of
execution plainly the result of careful instruction,
whilst his skill as a draughtsman of the figure (a rare
attainment among landscape-painters) was in all
probability due to the same influence. From the
studio of Nasmyth he proceeded to the school of
the Royal Academy, London, where he was a fellow-
student and friend of Turner, and where he acquired
a greater insight into the resources of his art.
At an early age Wilson visited Italy, and there
imbibed a strong predilection for classic composi-
tion in landscape-painting, and at same time laid
the foundation of that knowledge of the works of
the Italian masters for which he was afterwards dis-
tinguished. Early in the year 1803 several moneyed
men in Glasgow, hoping to profit by his knowledge,
engaged him to proceed to the Continent to pur-
chase works of art, which could then be procured
at very moderate prices owing to the state of uncer-
tainty induced by the prevailing wars. In course
of this journey he was arrested by the French at
Turin, and, notwithstanding his manifestly peaceful
occupations, was sent to Verdun as a prisoner of war.
From Verdun he managed to make his escape, and
after various adventures, amongst which he used to
tell of his being cast over a precipice by his guide
and falling into a fig-tree near a convent, whence he
was rescued and cared for by the monks, Wilson
at last reached Genoa. He continued to reside
there for nearly three years in the exercise of his
profession, during which time he was elected a mem-
ber of the Ligurian Academy of the Fine Arts. The
French, then in occupation of Genoa, did not molest
him. When Napoleon Buonaparte took occasion to
visit the Academy of Genoa, Wilson was in attend-
ance along with his fellow-academicians, and as
Napoleon paused before one of Wilson's pictures, a
fellow-artist, who bore him no good-will, whispered
that it was the work of an Englishman then present.
Napoleon sternly replied, "Le talent n'a pas de
pays." It would have been well had he remembered
this maxim when in 1803 he consigned so many
peaceful British travellers to a hopeless imprison-
ment. During Wilson's residence in Genoa at this
time, he purchased no less than fifty-four important
pictures by the old masters, and almost succeeded in
securing the altar-piece of San Stefano, the upper
part of which is one of Raphael's finest works, but it
was seized by the French just before he had com-
pleted the purchase. Amongst the pictures then
obtained may be mentioned " Moses and the Brazen
Serpent," by Rubens, now in the National Gallery,
London, purchased on the 27th March, 1805, from
Lorenzo Marana for 17,500 lire of Genoa, about
�66o. The "Adoration of the Magi," now in the
National Gallery, Edinburgh, which, if it be the
"Adoration" mentioned in the artist's accounts,
cost a very small sum indeed, as he specifies "a
small picture by Domenichino, 'Adoration of the
Magi,' ' Holy Family' and ' Annunciation' by Proc-
cacino, copy after Raphael, two landscapes by Tem-
pesta, large picture by Piola, ditto of the 'Venetian
School'�all for 2000 lire, about ,�70." It would
appear from other statements in his accounts that
the Genoese parted with their treasures of art for very
inconsiderable sums. For example, a Murillo pur-
chased from a Capuchin convent for 600 lire (the
exchange varied from 47� to 50 lire to the pound
sterling), a portrait of Philip IV. of Spain, by
Rubens, for 12 lire! A portrait by Raphael, "St.
Jerome in the Desert," "Infant Christ and St. John"
by Pierino del Vaga, acquired from G. Gentili�all for
950 lire! It must indeed have been desperate straits
which induced a Genoese nobleman to part with his
pictures at such prices. Leaving Genoa about the
16th March, 1806, Wilson proceeded to Leghorn,
and there embarked for England, which he reached
in safety.
In 1808 Wilson was married to an amiable lady of
great personal attractions and respectable family.
On her mother's side she was descended from a line
of artists, as jewellers once were, and amongst them
from James Inglis, the master and teacher of the
famous George Heriot. The prospects of an artist
in the first quarter of the present century were far
from brilliant unless he were a portrait-painter, and
Wilson experienced some difficulty in making a
living as a painter of landscape only. His resources,
however, were manifold; thoroughly well trained,
and of excellent abilities, he could adapt himself
to opposite and various branches of art, and thus
he became professor of drawing in the Military
College, Sandhurst, an appointment the duties of
which did not hinder him from pursuing his own
particular walk in art. While at Sandhurst his
genial society was much sought after by his coun-
trymen in the college, and by Scottish cadets; and
his residence there, if not calculated to enrich him,
was at least a pleasant period of his life. The
position of master of the Trustees' Academy, Edin-
burgh, becoming vacant by the death of Graham,
Wilson was in 1818 appointed his successor. During
eight years he discharged the duties of this important
trust with ability and fidelity, and trained a num-
ber of young artists, some of whom afterwards
became famous. To his students he was ever kind,
and ready to aid their progress; and his memory