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Hugh Douglas Hamilton
1739 (Dublin) – 1808 (Dublin)
A young lady with red hair
Oil on canvas, in painted oval
18.5 x 22.5 ins, 47 x 57.2 cms.
Unsigned
About the Sitter
Our study of a striking young lady has a different and attractive painting of the same sitter on the reverse, revealed when the old lining canvas was removed. It is sold with that lining canvas (which has been mounted on a stretcher and framed) and which shows in reverse the ghost of the earlier composition.
About the Artist
Hamilton was born in Dublin in 1740. He came to London in 1764 and quickly built up a highly successful practice as a portraitist in pastel. His sitters included royalty and politicians which drove his reputation.
In 1779 he travelled to Italy where he spent the next twelve years, occasionally visiting Florence but mainly in Rome. On the advice of John Flaxman he took up oil painting and his small oval portraits of Irish and British visitors were much in demand. Hamilton returned to Dublin in 1791 and remained there until his death in 1808.
Provenance
There are labels on the back of the frame:
1 The remains of an illegible 19th century label which includes the letters “…say”
2 A 19th century manuscript label:
“Agnes/ from her/ father/ Ramsay/ Duncan-Fraser”
There is a later label on the back of the original stretcher (now the stretcher for the lining canvas):
“Pickfords Ltd
Fraser No. 31”