Allan was born in
Arbroath in 1813, a son of weaving merchant Robert Allan. He began training as a solicitor but was then indentured in his grandfather's house-painting business, and was encouraged to study at the
Trustees' Academy at the end of his
apprenticeship. There he met
Robert Scott Lauder and accompanied him to Rome in the mid-1830s. The Lauders returned to Scotland in 1838 but Fraser settled for a time in Paris, painting views of the city. He was back in Arbroath by 1839, but then settled in London. , Arbroath Allan returned to Arbroath in 1842 on the invitation of the Edinburgh publisher Cadell, who wanted him to illustrate a new edition of
Walter Scott's
The Antiquary; however, the edition was never published. In 1843, Allan married heiress Elizabeth Fraser and took her name. Together they remodelled
Hospitalfield House; the scheme used mainly local craftsmen and converted an eighteenth-century barn into a gallery, added a five-storey
bartizan and a large wing. In 1856 the Frasers began the renovation of the
Blackcraig Castle estate in
Strathardle. Patrick became an architect and supervised the renovation himself. In 1873, he moved to Rome and was elected president of the
British Academy of Arts in Rome. He died, childless, on 17 September 1890. He endowed the Patrick Allan-Fraser of Hospitalfield Trust to establish
Hospitalfield House as an art college "for the assistance and encouragement of young men not having means of their own who shall be desirous of following up one or more of the professions of painting, sculpture, carving in wood, architecture and engraving." that he built for his wife ==Style==