Nathaniel Hone RA, Irish 1718-1784- Portrait of an artist holding a drawing, an unfinished canvas beyond; oil on canvas, 71 x 58.5 cm. Provenance: With Wilson Brothers Antique Galleries, Dallas, Texas; Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 16 May 2003...

Nathaniel Hone RA,

Irish 1718-1784-

Portrait of an artist holding a drawing, an unfinished canvas beyond;

oil on canvas, 71 x 58.5 cm.

Provenance: With Wilson Brothers Antique Galleries, Dallas, Texas; Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 16 May 2003, lot 1; Where acquired by the present owner.

Note: Hone is regarded as one of the most prodigious Irish portrait painters of the 18th Century. Like many Irish-born painters of the period, he relocated to England as a young man to exploit the greater market and desire for portrait painters.

After marrying the Duke of Argyll’s daughter in 1742, Hone settled in London where he received a number of commissions and built his reputation as a skilled miniaturist. By the 1760s he began to focus more on life-size portraiture where there continued to be a commercial desire. He regularly exhibited with the Society of Artists before becoming a Founder Member of the Royal Academy in 1768. Alongside painting commissioned portraits he was known to have completed a number of portraits of his children as well as self-portraits like the present work.

Hone is perhaps best known for his sometimes scandalous reputation with the Royal Academy. In 1775 he submitted a work called ‘The Conjurer’, which directly insulted the Academy’s President, Joshua Reynolds, as well as fellow Founder Member Angelica Kauffman. The work was subsequently rejected and Hone went on to hold a one-man exhibition at St Martin’s Lane – considered to be the first solo exhibition of an individual artist’s work in Britain.