Lot 106: Gustavus Hamilton (1739-1775)

Gustavus Hamilton (1739-1775) MINIATURE PORTRAITS, SIR JOHN CHARLES INGHAM AND LADY WILHELMINA INGHAM

watercolour

inscribed on reverse with sitters' names and address detail

9 by 6cm., 3.5 by 2.5in.

As with many of Gustavus Hamilton's portrait miniatures, these works may originally have been sewn onto a piece of velvet or ribbon and worn, in the woman's case, as a bracelet. The sitters are identified on reverse as Sir John Charles Ingham and Lady Wilhelmina Ingham. The inscription for Lady Ingham continues with an address, The Court, County Cavan, Ireland. Gustavus Hamilton was the younger son of a vicar from Co. Tyrone. Hamilton studied in Dublin under Robert West and was soon apprenticed to Samuel Dixon, in whose studio he learnt to colour the basso-relievo prints of birds and flowers in which Dixon specialised. Upon establishing his own studio on Dame Street he became highly successful, painting miniatures for "ladies of the first rank" and making "a power of his money by his pencil" (John O'Keefe, 'Recollections', quoted in Strickland, Vol. I, pp. 426-7). The National Gallery of Ireland complimented their exhibition of Turner watercolours in January 2010 by displaying alongside them a collection of 17th, 18th and 19th century silhouettes and miniatures from the Mary A. McNeill Bequeath (1984). This collection, which includes work by Gustavus Hamilton, promotes a renewed interest in these delicate works and illustrates both their importance and desirability as a collector's item.