(Dublin 1718–1784 London) Portrait of Horace Hone, the artist‘s son, as the young shepherd David, signed and dated at lower left NHone 1771, oil on canvas, 92 x 70 cm, framed,

Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1771; Pall Mall, London, 1775. P

rovenance: among the artist‘s private possessions; French private collection.

Literature: Horace Walpole, Observations on the Pictures Exhibited at the Royal Academy, London 1771 (David, when a shepherd, after having delivered his lamb from the lion - pretty good); The Exhibition of the Pictures by Nathaniel Hone RA, 70 St. Martin‘s Lane, London, London 1775, cat. no. 24; Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts, A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from Its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, vol. IV, London 1905; Adrian Le Harivel, Nathaniel Hone the Elder, Dublin 1992, p. 28-30; comp. Martin Postle, Angels and Urchins - The Fancy Picture in 18th-Century British Art, London 1998, p. 64.

Reproduction: J. Watson, David - A Portrait (mezzotint, 1778, not in the reverse direction like the rest of Watson‘s mezzotints). We are grateful to Dr. Brendan Rooney, Curator for Irish Painting at the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, for his kind assistance in cataloguing this painting. The rediscovery of this charming portrait, which fell into oblivion after its presentation at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1771, where it met with enthusiastic praise from the critics, is an important addition to Hone‘s oeuvre. Hone, one of the most important Irish artists, was born in Dublin the son of a goldsmith and was trained as a miniature painter in several workshops. In 1748, the artist, meanwhile a famous miniaturist, moved to London, where he became the dominant artist in this genre after Christian Friedrich Zincke‘s death. During his London period, Hone took to making portraits in oil, thus finding his ultimate vocation. His fame is grounded in his masterful portraits inspired from the great Dutch artists in Rembrandt‘s circle and the Roman Baroque. As a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768, Hone, a difficult personality, was involved in a year-long argument with the Academy‘s president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose Historicist style Hone disliked. This quarrel culminated in a satirical portrait of Reynolds and Angelika Kauffmann, which was rejected by the Academy in 1775 and led up to Hone‘s holding the first independent solo retrospective in art history. His portrayals of children were particularly acclaimed by his contemporaries, since - unlike his colleagues - he rendered them with individual features instead of depicting them in a stereotype fashion in the manner of adults‘ portraits. He excelled in a category invented by him, the so-called „fancy portraits“, in which he endowed historical personalities with portrait-like features - a method that was also to be employed by Gainsborough. The depiction of a child as a personality in its own right instead of a miniature adult was rare to contemporary art criticism. He frequently rendered his own children, to whom he was affectionately attached, in this manner, and the portraits of his sons Horace and John Camillus are often referred to as typical examples of this genre. The National Gallery in Dublin preserves the likenesses of his sons, Portrait of a Boy Sketching (Horace) and A Piping Boy (John Camillus). The depiction of his talented son as the juvenile David after his defeat of the lion certainly numbers among the best examples. Our painting, which has long been considered lost, was published by John Watson in 1778 as a mezzotint engraving, which is proof of the work‘s great popularity. Horace Hone, the artist‘s favourite son, was to become the most prominent miniaturist of the Regency period under the guidance of his father. In 1804, Horace was introduced to the future King George IV, whose court painter he remained until his death.

Exhibited: Royal Academy, London, 1771; Pall Mall, London, 1775. Provenance: among the artist‘s private possessions; French private collection. Literature: Horace Walpole, Observations on the Pictures Exhibited at the Royal Academy, London 1771 (David,