Lot 91: Gustavus Hamilton (1739-1775) MINIATURE PORTRAITS,

Gustavus Hamilton (1739-1775) MINIATURE PORTRAITS, SIR JOHN CHARLES INGHAM AND LADY WILHELMINA INGHAM inscribed on reverse with sitters' names and address detail watercolour 9 by 6cm., 3.5 by 2.5in. As with many of Gustavus Hamilton's portrait miniatures, these portraits 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. He 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).