Beschreibung:

Hone (Horace, 1754/6-1825). Portrait of a lady, 1788, watercolour, heightened with bodycolour, on ivory, oval head & shoulders portrait, half-profile to left, of a lady wearing a white-ruffled blue dress, a black muslin veil over her grey ringlets, and a black choker around her neck, monogrammed and dated lower left, artist's name in ink on backing paper in Arthur Jaffé's hand, 59 x 46mm (2.25 x 1.75ins), oval gilt moulded frame with bow detail Provenance: Collection of Arthur Jaffé OBE (1880–1954), and thence by descent. International lawyer Arthur Jaffé was an eminent scholar and collector of miniature paintings. He was an authority on John Smart and spent many years researching the miniaturist, with the intention of writing a catalogue raisonné of the artist’s works. Although he died before the task could be completed, the body of work he had produced formed the basis of Daphne Foskett’s book, John Smart The Man and his Miniatures, published in 1964. Painter of royalty and the aristocracy, Horace was the son of the Irish artist and miniaturist Nathaniel Hone He was taught by his father before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1770, exhibiting his work there between 1772 and 1822. In 1782 Hone moved to Dublin where he had a successful studio, and in 1795 was appoionted miniature painter to the Prince of Wales. However, his career was badly affected by the 1800 Act of Union which resulted in many of his fashionable patrons moving to London. He himself returned to London in 1804, but thereafter struggled financially and suffered from mental instability.