Paul Caffrey examines a newly discovered and undocumented portrait by the leading 18th-century miniaturist
Nathaniel Hone RA (1718-1784), is well known as a founder member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, for the dispute with Sir Joshua Reynolds over Hone’s The Conjuror (National Gallery of Ireland), and as the father of a dynasty of painters that have been linked with the history of Irish art in the past three centuries. However, for most of his life as a painter, Hone worked in the difficult technique of painting miniature portraits on enamel. It was as an enamellist that Hone made his reputation as the leading miniature painter working in England and Ireland during the 1740s and 1750s
