Lot 228: JOHN TROTTER

JOHN TROTTER FL.1756-1792 PORTRAIT OF AN OFFICER OF THE 18 TH ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT OF FOOT oil on canvas 97.5 by 123 cm., 38 1/2 by 48 1/2 in.

C.I. Conway, by descent to;
Mrs. Joan Conway, Turville Court, recorded as by 'Zoffany';
Her sale, Sotheby's London, 22nd March 2000, lot 84, (bt. by the present owner for £98,000)

John Trotter was a successful Irish born portrait painter who studied at the Dublin Society's Schools from circa 1756 'where his genius was in admiration and he made drawings, unrivalled by any master before or since' (see Hibernian Journal, 1800). He subsequently studied in Rome for sixteen years between c.1759 and 1773, and on his return married Mary Anne Hunter, the daughter of the pre-eminent Dublin portraitist Robert Hunter, in 1774.

Trotter had a successful practice as a portrait painter in Dublin, first in Stafford Street and then in Jervis Street and Britain Street, often working in partnership with his wife, Mary Anne, who was also an artist. The present portrait can be compared with those of John Rawdon-Hastings and his wife Lady Anne Rawdon, sold at in these rooms on 10υth July 1985.

The 18υth Royal Irish Regiment of Foot was based in Ireland from 1763 until 1767, and subsequently in North America from 1767 to 1776 and England from 1776 until 1781. It has been suggested, however, that the sitter might well be home on leave, or retired, and is here portrayed alongside a memorial to his wife 'in memoriam'.