Lot 26: John Trotter (c.1740-1792)

Portrait of an Officer of an Irish Volunteer Regiment, small full-length, in a wooded landscape, holding a spontoon oil on canvas 29 x 231/4 in. (73.7 x 58.4 cm.) PROVENANCE Purchased by George Gibbs, 2nd Baron Wraxall of Tyntesfield, from Leger Galleries, London, in 1995. NOTES John Trotter studied at the Dublin Society Schools in 1755 where he won three gold premiums and where, according to the Hibernian Journal in 1800, 'his Genius was in admiration, and he made drawings unrivalled probably by any master before or since'. Like many artists of his generation he was drawn to Rome where he travelled in 1759 and remained for sixteen years. In Rome he is recorded as living in the same house as his compatriot the landscape painter Solomon Delane in the Strada Felice in 1764. On his return from Italy he set up as a portrait painter in Dublin, where he is recorded as living in Strafford Street, and later Jervis Street. He showed his work at the Society of Artists and various exhibitions in Dublin, and continued to practice until his death. He was married twice, firstly to Marianne daughter of Robert Hunter, the leading portrait painter of his time in Ireland, by whom he had two daughters, who were both artists. This portrait is characteristic of Trotter's work, which is often of small-full-length format and shows the influence of his contemporary Francis Wheatley. During the latter part of the 18th century two large militia's were raised in Ireland, the Irish Volunteers and the Yeomanry. The Voluteers were self-raised and equipped, and emerged during the American War of Independence largely as a result of the Government's failure to recruit for the militia in Ireland at a time when there was a very real threat of a French invasion while the majority of the standing army was deployed in America. The growing agitation for the granting of more independence to the Irish Parliament was also a factor. The volunteer regiments had a rapid and widespread popularity with landowners and attracted considerable aristocratic patronage with virtually every town and village boasting a corps which might number anything from thirty to several hundred members.