Beschreibung:

NATHANIEL HONE THE ELDER (1718-1784) Portrait of a lady holding a book Oil on canvas Signed with monogram and dated 1758 Although they later fell out dramatically and their relationship is inevitably viewed through the events surrounding the exclusion ofThe Conjurorfrom the 1775 exhibition of the Royal Academy in the 1750s Nathaniel Hone and Joshua Reynolds seem to have been close both personally and professionally. They were two young artists on the rise with Hone, born in 1718, the elder by five years. There seems to have been some connection between Reynolds and Hones brother, Samuel, when the two were in Italy together in 1752, with a sketched portrait of Master Hone appearing in one of Reynoldss Italian Sketchbooks in the British Museum. By the mid-1750s Hone and Reynolds were both winning distinguished patronage and were involved together in the fractious art politics of the time, but, perhaps crucially, with the latter yet to establish the total dominance of the London art world which he would secure in the following decade particularly after the establishment of the Royal Academy with the, by now, Sir Joshua in charge as President. In the year after the present work was painted, Reynolds and Hone served on a committee of leading artists charged with organising a public exhibition to improve the standing of the profession. Several of this committee, Francis Hayman Richard Wilson Joseph Wilton and William Chambers went on, with Hone and Reynolds, to comprise the foundation members of the Royal Academy. Hone was one of two Irish artists so honoured with the number limited to forty in the instrument of foundation, signed by George III on 10 December 1768. George Barret was the other and both served as members of the first Council of the R.A., a position it is difficult to see Hone having attained without the support of the President. It is unsurprising then that there are telling overlaps between Hone and Reynoldss portrait practice. The present portrait of a lady shares the central placement of the sitter and frank gaze and amused, quizzical, or possibly flirtatious, expression with ReynoldssCatherine, Lady Chambers(1756, Kenwood House, London) while the arrangement of the hands, held interlinked on a ledge, recalls or anticipates ReynoldssPortrait of Lady Caroline Adair(1757-59, private collection) and a succession of later portraits such asMrs IrwinandMrs Montgomery(both 1761; Huntington Art Collection, San Marino and private collection). However, the Hone differs from all of these portraits by Reynolds, in the inclusion of a book, a motif the latter very rarely uses in his numerous portraits of female sitters. Her benign expression accords happily with the harmonious colour scheme and gently bravura treatment of the varied textures of her clothes, while she wears similar large pearl drop earrings to those sported by Hones wife in a 1749 miniature portrait (private collection, with Gorry Gallery, Nov 2016). The present work will be included in the forthcoming monograph on the artist currently being compiled by the author and Dr Brendan Rooney. Anyone with information about Nathaniel Hone is invited to get in touch with the authors via the National Gallery of Ireland. William Laffan