R. R. McIan

A MacDonald of Glencoe (McIan), from The Clans of the Scottish Highlands.

Robert Ronald McIan (1803 – 13 December 1856), also Robert Ranald McIan, was a Scottish actor and painter. He is best known for romanticised depictions of Scottish clansmen, their battles and domestic life.

His wife, Fanny McIan, was a painter and early teacher of art to women.

Acting McIan was born in Scotland, in 1803. He became an actor with the joint company of the Theatres Royal in Bristol and Bath Henry Vizetelly wrote that he "was generally voted an intolerable bore". Frances (Fanny) Whitaker daughter of a Bath cabinet maker.

Mrs McIan was a noted painter in her own right, who exhibited at the Royal Academy and other leading galleries. She too favoured historical subjects from the Highlands, such as Highlander defending his Family at the Massacre of Glencoe. A member of Clan MacNeacail, from The Clans of the Scottish Highlands (1845).

Painting

McIan learnt to paint whilst he was an actor, and submitted his first landscape to the Royal Academy in 1836. It proved so popular that it was reissued in 1857, after his death.